Of Death and Love
by The Varajan
Summary: In all of us there is the eternal tempest: the struggle. There is the noble nature and the darker nature, the worst locked in combat with the better of us forever more. *Chapters 1-7 have been re-edited* *Thank you Trinity Typhoon for your editing!*
1. Chapter 1

**To my editor TrinityTyphoon**, **thank you.**

_When trust is deep, love is natural. When love is natural, devotion becomes inherent. When devotion becomes inherent, sacrifice is simple._

_-The Varajan  
_

He kept running through the halls of the manor as hard as his legs could carry him. His heart thundered in his chest and his lungs burned as he exploded with spent breath. His limp leg protested and ached in pangs as his long legs propelled him forward. His arms vaguely snatched forward as if doing so would bring the hall's end before him closer, though at the speed he was going it was understandable. He was trying to escape the nosferatu.

The young man ducked into a room he knew to be the music room of the mansion. It was richly furnished with exquisite curtains in the traditional burgundy of the family he served and on either end of the room were tall bookcases with innumerable old books and enough music instruments to enchant a musician of any caliber. As he opened the door and shot inside he shut it behind him as quietly as he could. It was in vain; he knew it would find him and he would be overpowered. But if he could have a few precious seconds before it caught him, just a few more moments, it would be worth it. He had tried as hard as he could to defend himself against the monster but he failed innumerable times.

The damned creature would simply keep on coming no matter what he did, so now all he could do is run and run he did. He breathed deeply as he tried to calm himself. Seconds ticked by like distant thunder, each one washing over him like a thunderclap. He stared at the door for long seconds as nothing happened. His mind raced, what else could he do to save himself?

Certainly seeking out Sir Integra would be a horrendous idea. He was supposed to be a vampire hunter and yet had been on the run from one in the Hellsing estate for the better part of an hour. As scared as he was he still felt a tinge of shame, he just couldn't bring himself to face the monster.

He leaned back on his heel as he began to turn around but he froze. The young man didn't feel but rather sensed the creature's hands just an inch from his body. A chill crawled up his back as he pictured the monster behind him. Its strong arms and long legs, its big eyes and wide, fanged smile. His hands turned to fists from anxiety, his knees felt like jelly. The monster had finally caught up to him and now he was going to suffer for it. But just how much would he have to endure, before the creature would end its little game, he didn't know.

Hands fastened around his elbows, impeding him from thrashing, and he was pulled to the creature's chest then lifted clear of the floor. His feet kicked as his cry echoed in the night. He felt the creature's breath on his neck, he could almost taste it. The young man fancied he could just feel the edge of the nosferatu's sharp fangs inching to his neck.

The young man continued to struggle and scream as the fangs grazed his neck, slowly nipping against his skin. In a violent twist he arched himself out of the creature's grip, rolling from the ground to his feet in a single movement. He was well aware that this was, in all certainty, because the creature let him go. It wanted to relish this moment of play before it had its satisfaction.

He raced towards the wide windows of the mansion which overlooked the breathtaking hills and moors behind the estate. The sunset warmed them with a rosy glow overlooked by a vanilla and lavender sky, it gave the quiet, forbidding place a bit of life.

The young man wondered if this was to be his last sight before the monster decided to have its way. Sure, if it was to come let it come now. He was done running, and he would not be remembered as a coward!

He turned, raising his fists to fight, only to find himself easily brought to the ground by a tackle from the monster. Thrashing as hard as he could, he struggled against it, but the creature had had enough. It pushed his arms down by the wrists into the soft carpeting even as his legs kicked and wriggled. It appraised the young man with the same wide, predatory smile and it came down on his neck slowly, relishing its squirming prey.

The young man brought his chin to his neck as to protect it, even if it were in vain. The creature with its own chin forced itself through and nipped him in the neck provoking a slight gasping squeak from the vampire hunter. Then, it opened its maw impossibly wide, its curving fangs ready to sink into flesh and drink deeply.

But the bite never came, only laughter from the young man who giggled and thrashed at the little bites. "Seras! Stop it I'm ticklish there!" shouted the young man between bouts of laughter and squirming. The Draculina gazed lightheartedly at her prey and giggled.

"I know love, that's why I'm doing it" she laughed as the hunter struggled to his back and clawed his way out and away from under her. The Draculina immediately dragged him back, flipping him over again. Her supernaturally strong hands seized his wrists as he jerked fruitlessly. The human bit his lip, suppressing a laugh.

Seras gave a predatory smirk as she held his wrists to the carpet. He was completely immobile and her eyes shone, smugly dominant. "I'm stronger than you, so don't even try to struggle," they seemed to say. Her smile returned as he tried, with all his might, to free his arms. As gentle as her hold was, it was absolute. He was not getting free unless she allowed it.

He sat up, trying to pull his arms forward with his torso, and brought himself almost to eye level with her. Yet she pressed him down again with her forehead against his. Eye to eye her smile widened and she bobbed her head mockingly.

"Ha ha!" she said in a sing song voice, relishing her position. Her jagged smile opened as she inched to bite at his neck again but she stopped as she saw the expression on his face. Behind his glasses, his rich opaque eyes softened, something of patient acceptance shone in his gaze and a little innocent smile adorned his lips.

Ceasing the struggle, he left his neck vulnerable, neither shielding it nor offering it but simply leaving it be. She stopped pressing down his hands as her pulse quickened. As she raised herself up a bit, his now free hands wandered to her face.

Seras glanced at them as his fingers traced her cheek. It was not that he hadn't touched her like this before, but it was the way he was doing it; the warmth in his eyes and the smile on his face showed a deliberate openness in exposing his neck so submissively. It was him submitting to her as the dominant creature. It was his saying, 'you can feed on me if you want to,' in that body language.

Her insides fluttered anxiously; she knew he felt something. For months he had been so sweet to her, so warm, yet so blunt and callus, so mean and then so understanding. Getting to know the young man had been an adventure. Every day he looked at her as if he hadn't seen her in years, he reserved this special, overjoyed smile only for her.

The red tint in her ocean blue eyes flashed and disappeared. "Hungry?" he whispered.

She blushed, she felt ashamed the thought had just crossed her mind and more so that he could tell so easily. "A little" she responded, shifting to get off of him. A little tug on her wrists halted her movement. Suddenly all her strength and dominance was gone.

"Wait," he said softly. Her blue eyes locked onto his rich brown, which searched hers. Then he arched his head back slightly, offering himself.

"No love, I ca-"

"Seras" he uttered, cutting her words short, "I want it. I want you to drink from me."

"Why?"

"I don't know," he chuckled with an uninhibited smile, "I… I just want to be that close to you. I want you to feed from me, Seras, instead of drinking that cold donated blood. I want to share my blood with you."

"But," he added hesitantly, "only if you are comfortable doing so." His hands slipped off her wrists, trailed up her arms to the back of her head, and toyed with the blonde locks there. His eyes sparked with hope as they held hers.

"I…." murmured Seras, trailing off to glance his neck. His pulse was strong and steady and pumped in its usual excitement when around her.

The young man felt his confidence waning in the face of the young Draculina's hesitance, in his mind he took a step back and decided to withdraw with a measure of dignity. "I just want to have that kind of intimacy with you Seras, that's all," he said softly as he began to sit up, regretting making that push.

He stopped as Seras' hands touched his face, ever-so-slightly pushing down. A wide smile split his face as he saw her meet his eyes and inch down to his neck.

Excitement shot across his body like lightning. His pulse quickened and his heart fluttered in a sharp mixture of fright and desire. His ears buzzed with blood and his guts were riled with what felt like a flutter of storming butterflies. Arousal warmed his blood and began to stiffen his loins and he could hear his heartbeat.

He worried momentarily when she gave him a glance, wondering if she had felt his member hardening. But he forgot his embarrassment when she softly whispered, "I won't hurt you, I promise. I won't lose control."

Seras seemed to be put at ease as she noticed the trust in his eyes. Most humans would be terrified of a vampire feeding on them, but he was not.

He felt it was an intimate act and he wanted to share it with her. A human was actually asking her to feed on him! Seras breathed his scent in deeply. He smelled so good; musky and masculine. It evaded true description, but it was very uniquely him. She felt something stir in his pants but she paid it no mind. It was rather nice to know he found her attractive. And besides he was very handsome; beaming smile, glasses, his eccentricities included.

She smoothed her lips across the soft skin of his neck, then gently pressed her fangs closer. Blue eyes opened and glanced at him once more, wondering if he was regretting this, but Seras was relieved to see he had closed his eyes in relaxation. One of his hands continued to play through her hair and the other danced across her side.

The Draculina drew herself closer, and fangs pierced his skin with one swift bite. A gasp of pain, real pain, halted her in her tracks. The young man's legs tensed against hers, but his hands had not stopped tracing her form. Despite his pain, a smile tugged at his features.

Easing into her meal she sucked gently even as every single instinct told her to bite and tear his throat out. Delicately, she drew blood into her mouth. With a pleasant surprise, she thought _"His blood is absolutely amazing!"_

It was gently warm, like bathwater. It was thick but not viscous, it was soft in taste but not flavorless. It was not salty or sour but a smooth liquid that warmed her mouth as her tongue flicked at the skin and worried the wound for more.

His blood had an aroma reminiscent of wine, deep and dark and burning sweet. The blood tasted of glory and it warmed her, head-to-toe, as it slid down her throat and rushed through every vein in her body.

But then there was something unexpected; a flashing thought lanced through her mind, opening the floodgates to disordered blips of emotions, memories, thoughts…. All washing around her in an overwhelming torrent that came like an epileptic seizure.

This…

This was him!

And suddenly, so painfully intimately, she knew him…who he was, where he came from, who his parents were, what he wanted, what he was afraid of, and who he loved….

She was stung by loneliness, fear, and rage… buoyed up with hope and overwhelming love. Before her she saw a young boy, not unlike the man she was drinking from. Other children yelled at him, and Seras was washed in his resounding distrust. She felt agony as she saw a woman who didn't look unlike the young boy cut and bleed him. The child shrieked in pain. She saw the same boy holding a baby and his face lighting up with awe.

She saw the boy writing stories and thoughts in a black book in the years that came as he grew.

"_To put a gun in one's mouth_  
_is to place one's hand upon the prison's gate._  
_To pull the trigger is to be set free."_

And under it he wrote to someone who didn't exist:

"_I will never hurt you._  
_I love you._ _With all my might, I love you; passionately, gently, with reason and with trust. I love you in the absolute."_

She saw the adolescent walking home dreading what waited for him. His mother threw a bottle at him, she reeked of alcohol as she shrieked at him and tried to hit him with whatever she could reach in a rage of frustration. She saw the boy crying alone in his hate for the woman. He had tried as hard as he could to kindle a relationship with her. Why didn't she love him?

She saw him weeping as if to die, as an older woman, his dear caretaker, lay in a casket. She felt his heart snap and shred itself. Seras felt his desire to die and his hope for life. His hatred of people yet his faith and magnanimity towards them. His desperation and yearning to love and be loved.

The images and feelings raced through her until they reached the image of a woman, it was an image of herself. The image of the woman glowed like the sun and Seras' heart raced as she knew he adored her. Her closed eyes ran with tears.

She drew back from the young man's neck, but not before she licked the wound instinctively one more time to aid healing. Seras sat up as she gazed out to the moors as her eyes wept but her heart settled.

The young man smiled contently, all his arousal gone, all replaced by the elation in his heart. He had not, in recent memory, felt so happy. He opened his eyes, his heart sinking as he saw Seras weeping silently. Before he could say a word, she gazed into his eyes and her voice broke. She spoke nothing at all, but the mourning in her eyes said everything.

He now understood that by sharing his blood, she had seen into his memories and his very spirit. His nerves were alight with the thought of her so suddenly, intimately knowing him, and he was terrified with the thought of rejection.

"I am so sorry…" wept Seras

The young man wiped at her tears, he understood immediately; his mother's treatment of him, the death of his grandmother who had raised him, the abuses he suffered and the isolation he weathered. But he could sense through the tangle of feelings that she hadn't seen too deeply into his memories.

Good

"It's alright mein Schatz, I am alright now," he whispered, wondering if she felt differently about him now. If perhaps now she saw him as damaged goods and no longer just himself.

"I love you!" she choked.

His eyes widened in incredulity, she was openly weeping! Surely, she meant it as friends. Yet it was sweet to allow himself to believe, if only for a moment, that she meant it romantically.

"I love you too," he replied calmly.

Her moist eyes pinched at the corners with a gleeful grin.

"You are daft you crazy German! I mean I am in love you with you!" she choked between tears.

His eyes were suddenly stinging too, as he began to weep with joy and disbelief.

"You-you love me?!"

"YES!!! I love you I love you I love you!!!" she cried joyously. Sitting up in one swift motion, he embraced her and she him. They two were filled to overflowing with joy, tears running from their smiling eyes.

His hands held her face as he took a long hard look at her, taking in every detail of her visage. Every beauty mark, every little everything. "Can I kiss you?" he asked with what felt like laughter building in his throat.

"No of course you can't, I just told you I loved you to see how you would react!" She snarked, all sarcasm, "come here" she said to him in a voice like honey and her incredibly strong arms pulled the young man to her chest. Their lips met and they forgot about the world around them.

Seras knew he loved her beyond words and reason after all the battles they'd fought together, the things they had shared and the joys they had had. But she knew now that she wanted this man for herself, knew she was in love with him. And all it took was a good look at what was inside him.

Lips and tongues shyly met, played, and then battled as they pressed to one another. The young man could taste his own blood on Seras' tongue, but was not frightened in the slightest by it. He merely pressed closer, enchanted by her taste and her scent. By the feel of this woman who so intimately knew him, who saw his soul bared, if only for a moment. Now he felt whole. Now he was truly happy.

The Draculina tasted him and her heart thundered like a tumult of drums. She wanted this man for herself, and she did not want to share. Seras couldn't put words to what she was feeling, it was so wondrous and deep! Relishing the feeling, her only wonder was the silent little thought that nagged at her consciousness; was this what her mother felt when father kissed her, held her?

Perhaps, would she still be alive she would ask. But it didn't matter, she knew the young man now better than he perhaps knew himself. She knew his nature and he was perfect for her. And now she wanted nothing more than to be perfect for him too. Her mind raced with possibilities as his lips left hers and he pressed the side of his face against hers.

Seras knew now he was still a virgin.

She wanted to relish the moment and the weeks to come. But she was most certainly going to figure out from Master how to turn her young man into a vampire. Only if he was willing, of course, she would never force that on him. Yet she knew she would not need to, that for her… he would become a nosferatu in a heartbeat.


	2. Chapter 2

The young man sat at the edge of his fluffy, mound-like bed in his humble chambers. The color of his room was nondescript and mellow, adorned with only a few paintings whose depictions echoed warm fields and sunny days. In a giant bookcase were dozens upon dozens of books that ranged from medieval history to fantasy fiction. On the large heavy drawers that sat against the window's wall sat an antiquated record player flanked by a dozen or so old record discs. In the corner furthermost to the window stood a suit of German knight armor which looked like it had been taken apart recently. No doubt to be put on. A sword and longbow rested against the wall by the greaves of the armor.

Along the walls were many dozens upon dozens of pages of handwritten German texts. Anyone who knew a modicum of monster legends could discern the dark words of German monsters of tale.

Each page depicted legends of assorted and terrifying creatures and basic instructions of where they dwell, how they behave and of how to slay them.

His dark eyes which had once not been dark at all settled on the page entitled _"Vampire"_

He had been seeing his Draculina for three months now, the little duties needed about the Estate were mostly clerk work on his part aside from being forced to practice his powers on the shooting range and better his swordplay and gunplay as well as self defense to compensate for his relative physical frailty. As to swordplay, which he enjoyed in the extreme, he suspected that Integra had the hunch that blades and magic could indeed mix like in the old tales.

A flaming sword would be a sight to see

But aside from that he had to perform information gathering and interpretations from a hundred different sources, then delivering his final report to Sir Integra before the day was finished.

Thinking back on how much he had told her about his uses he should have left out that perhaps he was familiar with the supernatural at an almost scholarly level.

After he presented his report he would have furlough for the rest of the day.

Although the word furlough in Hellsing was relative, he was fascinated with the undead and supernatural and although he was under no obligation to work he would continue to study texts about the lycanthropes that were springing up in the Scottish moors of the north.

He rubbed at his sore neck, made so by having gazed for hours on end into texts for the better part of three days. Glancing at the cane that he set on a nail stabbed into the wall next to the oak door the same nagging little thought wormed into his brain.

A leg injury during his youth had left him with a sensitive leg joint and he had struggled with it from then till now.

Seras had asked him about his leg brace which he seldom used and his cane but he had been ambiguous in his answer. He had always simply told her he'd fallen as a boy. She never asked for more detail and simply took it as an accident.

However the truth was less than accidental.

As his heart accelerated as he tasted the bitter, angry memory. Seras always told him he needed to let go of the grudges he was carrying, she had helped him a great deal. He felt so different from the thing he was almost a year ago. His heart soothed and a smile broke across his face as he thought of her, he stared stupidly at a thin little book stifled by the two largest fiction books he had as he pictured its content. Juggling relationships with her had been fun to say the least but both of them were acutely aware that they were not supposed to be a couple. Yet pretending to be the usual warm pals and co-workers instead of lovers was exciting simply because no one was supposed to know and not being able to kiss one another until late at night in private made them want the other so much more.

Still, from the way they usually behaved before they were involved no one really questioned their spending a lot of time together either alone or in the company of others or one visiting their rooms. Each was thought of as the other's shadow at this point.

The only real scare they had suffered was during a calm night were they were joking and teasing in the music room as usual.

Alucard appeared through a wall as the young man leaned on Seras. Tears of joy welled in his eyes as he looked at his Draculina in the moonlight, he felt his heart was going to burst and his smile he suspected might actually crawl up to his ears in length. So focused he was on her that he hooked his left foot around his right leg and fell only to be caught by Seras who lifted him up with no effort.

Both of them froze and shifted into their roles as co-workers and warm friends.

"I swear you trip over air, Siegfried"

"And I'd swear you are right"

She set him on his feet and he looked at Alucard with his most polite smile.

"Good Morning, Count"

The vampire glanced at the young man from under his orange shades and a long smile cut across his face. A smile like a knife.

"Don't play with your food police girl"

Seras looked at him bashfully, the way an apprentice looks at a master when he or she still isn't comfortable with the idea of their normally grave, uncomfortable and stern teacher making jokes.

"He's not food Master" she said mustering a smile

"Oh? Then perhaps I was simply mistaken, when I noticed those bite marks on his neck I assumed you decided to expand your culinary tastes forcefully"

Involuntarily the Siegfried's hand went to his neck where the scars were concealed. How did he know?

"Or" added Alucard sparing his young servant a look

"Did the good Officer ask you to take of him?" he said as he smiled knowingly at the couple.

Both of them had their eyes open as if they'd been caught red handed.

Seras couldn't move, she had no idea what Master would do or what it meant that he knew that she was involved with her dearest boy.

"Count, do you approve?" asked the Officer quietly and submissively holding his head differentially down. For all his initial distaste and lasting distrust of the vampire he knew when he was vulnerable. It didn't hurt to be nice to someone who had power over you. No matter how much it might scrape at your patience.

The No Life King smiled nostalgically as if remembering something sweet and old then glanced at the young man smugly as if he had lost a bet yet didn't mind.

"Approve? This is not my business. You and the police girl can do whatever you like"

"Are you going to tell Integra?"

The vampire ancient smiled and faded back into the wall quietly.

With a look like a man conniving different angles Siegfried tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear and glanced back as Seras put her hand on his shoulder.

"Master won't tell" she said smiling at ease.

The Officer looked back at his Draculina and his eyes smoothed, he walked over to her suppressing the pain that was warming in his knee joint and grabbed Seras by the scruff of her shirt's collar with both hands and pressed his lips forcefully onto hers. His hands shifted to her cheeks in a passionate kiss which he cut short as she dug her nails lightly into his lower back.

"Scheiße that was scary" he muttered

Seras giggled and fingered his uniform's collar.

"Hungry?"

"Nope" she said as she grinned at him.

"You know, my neck is scarring" he quietly sang to her

The Draculina looked red in embarrassment as she pulled down his collar and inspected the concentration obvious pricks in his neck.

"Sorry"

"Don't be, I rather like them" he said with a hint of pride as he ran his hand through her hair. They sat back down on the long lounge sofa that overlooked the wide, open windows that overlooked the hills behind the estate that looked just as lovely as they had when they had shared that first intimate night.

For the longest time, neither said anything as they sat together watching the moon's light fade as it was replaced by an absolute darkness of the hours before dawn.

As the hours waxed on the young man looked at Seras and she looked at him. There was so much he wanted to say to her, to that beautiful face, there were so many things he wanted to do with her. But he forbade himself from opening his mouth lest he say something he thought was obviously stupid.

Asking her to marry him for example

He suppressed his desires and set his head on her lap while he dangled his legs off the side of the lounge sofa placidly. Her strong yet smooth hands traced little lines across his face, which he fancied were his veins.

His eyes closed and the words slipped out of his mouth like a breath.

"Ich liebe dich mein Schatz"

The Draculina smiled lovingly and kissed his forehead. Both burned away the final hours of darkness as dawn approached and both went to their separate quarters dearly wishing the night would last forever.

The next day Siegfried dressed up in the attire that appealed to his imagination and theatrical side, amongst the thousand little secrets in Hellsing he found a closet with dark Victorian clothing which he now favored in conjunction with a waist level cloak and a hood. He was an occultist after all, and he felt he should dress the part . He slipped on his jackboots (something which Walter, Integra's butler and confidant, was kind enough to point out was appropriate of a German in a policing organization much to the Siegfried's chagrin) and marched out of his room, leaning on his cane for support he fingered his typed report open and leafed through the visual evidence one more time as he wondered if his cursive handwritten notes were legible enough.

In the pictures several corpses were lying in twisted positions, mutilated and half eaten. Some didn't even look like people but they were which made it all the more morbid.

The young Officer was quite convinced that it was the work of werewolves which were always a problem in the most remote places of Scotland.

Every time one would think one's wiped them out, they come again after years in hiding and roaming the wilderness.

Though this time he was particularly worried, these werewolf attacks were blatant and wasteful. It was like the monsters were simply killing out of sport, not even out of malice or hunger. He suspected that perhaps it was a large pack of them on a Blood Hunt but something simply struck him as out of place. He couldn't describe it, but there was intelligence behind the raids there was something strange about how blatantly violent and exposed the attacks were, as if they were trying to get attention. But of course that's absurd, never in Hellsing's long history have there been werewolves in an alliance of packs being led by something with even a semblance of intelligent thought. Animal cunning sure, but premeditated intelligent attacks?

The thought pulled at the pit of his stomach.

The young Officer reached Integra's office and knocked thrice.

He could hear some muffled voices as he awaited to be called in, unconsciously he cracked his index finger with his thumb in contemplation. When would he be redeployed for combat? Limp leg and all.

Smiling at the little oddity of his condition and his duties he opened the door when he heard Integra call for him.

"Come!" she commanded, he coiled internally. He absolutely hated it when she treated him like a servant, but again. She did have the advantage and she knew it, she had a carrot she could dangle in his face in order to secure his cooperation and good behavior: Seras Victoria.

He stepped in quietly as he glanced at the clock near the window.

9:00 am

Much to his pride however, he was never ever late.

He looked about and saw Seras wink at him and smirk in her usual way and he returned the gestures smiling widely. He pulled his hood back respectfully as he anticipated the second before she would have demanded he should do so.

"Report Officer" said Integra as she closed the file she'd been currently reading and assaulted him with her full attention, something which she had never done during times of work and he was not at all used to unless he was in some kind of trouble.

"Jawohl" uttered Siegfried as he bowed his head deferentially but artificially.

He opened the report and began to drone out what he felt was the pertinent information.

"In the village of Havenbrook situated in Orkney Island there have been reports of vicious attacks on livestock for the past few weeks and three days ago we've lost all contact with the village and the surrounding hamlets. The British Government by my communicates have stepped back as I have determined this to be the work of the supernatural, specifically lycanthropes"

He looked up from his paper at Integra who was smoking placidly and drilling into his brain with her cold eyes. His rich dark eyes lanced right back at hers with hesitant animosity before focusing once more on his report. What did he do now to piss her off?

"Sir Hellsing, I do not presume assert any undue authority but from the sources you have assigned to me but I am completely certain that this is the work of werewolves-"

"Officer Weber" said Integra as she took a long drag from her fine cigar.

Her tone was absolute and it could silence a room with but a word.

"I took you in because you are of use to me. The Hellsing Organization stands to benefit from the talents you possess and your expertise which we can rely on. Had you none of the former I would have had Seras put a bullet through your skull when she caught you. I gave you those sources so you can do your job. I expect you to follow your instincts and do what you think is right in order to complete the mission of Hellsing. Is this understood?" she proclaimed as her eyes searched his for any doubt.

The young man didn't take his eyes away from hers, fearlessly he held her gaze. The defiance in his eyes lessened as he recognized the spark in Integra's eyes.

Respect, to him?

He snapped his report shut and his countenance became friendly.

"Danke" he said mustering a modest but genuine smile.

"Don't thank me, just do your job"

"Jawohl" he uttered as he remembered where he left off.

"I believe this is the work of werewolves and I have the feeling that perhaps this might be a Blood Hunt"

Integra smiled and leaned back into her chair.

"Forgive me, I am unfamiliar with the term. Would you enlighten me?"

Siegfried nodded and continued.

"A Blood Hunt is, as the great Van Hellsing described in his writings and I quote: _When enough of the lunar beasts congregate under the strength of a male they conduct the blood hunt. They will use their swelled numbers to slaughter every god fearing man, woman and child they can find in order to satisfy their base instinct to breed. To secure their right to mate with the bitches of the pack to produce their unnatural offspring in some mockery of the natural process. I dare not ponder what damage this would cause if left unchecked, so my fellows and I will hunt them to the brink the abyss until their numbers, by some dark miracle of Lucifer rise again. One cannot stop, in order to end a blood hunt they must be decimated in the extreme. They must be defeated"_

Integra narrowed her eyes and clutched at the bridge of her nose

_Life is one god damn thing after the other_

"Do you have an estimate as to how many of these animals are involved?"

"Nein, but werewolf packs consist of at least seven members and no more than twelve. This could have been the work of maybe four or five packs with an alpha male leading the movements"

"Is that your guess or what you feel?"

"It's what I feel"

Integra glanced at him, the annoyance clear on her face.

"I am going to deploy you and Seras to take care of the problem along with a small team of operatives. Alucard will be in the vicinity making sure that the abominations don't decide to escape"

"Think of this as a training exercise. And Officer Weber" she began

The young man stood quietly as her words hung in the air like a threat.

"When you come back from this mission I am placing you under intensive training. I don't want feelings from you, I want actual numbers and visions. You are developing your clairvoyance if it kills you"

"Sir Hellsing, I am an occultist but I am not a seer. That was the realm and talent of my grandmother, and being left to my own devices without tutor or means I have to discover on my own how my powers work. So no, I cannot do as you ask" he retorted in a sing song voice which for once was not laced with contempt or sarcasm.

Integra grimaced at him then gestured him to approach her quaint but imposing desk.

Siegfried nodded coolly not sparing a single moment more to lengthen the interaction between them. He dearly wanted to stop being in the same room with her, despite how he'd become more civil to her in the past few months. And she, in some ways towards him.

"Whatever you order Sir Hellsing"

"Good" she uttered as she held out her hand for his report which he walked over to give to her trying very hard not to lean on his cane.

She glanced at the text as he stood near her desk as was proper protocol in case she wanted to hand him something more.

"A thorough report Officer, I have one more thing to ask of you"

The young man smiled quietly and listened to her never once looking at Seras who shared his work-mode demeanor.

"Come around my desk" she asked as she turned on her intimidating high-back chair and he came about.

Seras looked at this curiously, this was irregular because Integra's meetings were always strict in procedure.

"Kneel" she ordered as he looked at her in mock surprise. To his mind there was no room for disobedience to a good commander, however much he hated her guts, so he obeyed and bent his knee painfully on his good leg.

She studied his face which held a genuinely innocent expression.

"How have you been feeling as of late? Tired perhaps?"

"Not at all Sir Hellsing. Why do you ask?" he replied smoothly

"Do you feel cold?"

"Nein"

Integra looked at him like a predatory hawk. Siegfried's own eyes shined like shield up turned to block her gaze despite the intimidation that ran through his mind. He had never really noticed how much scarier Integra was than Alucard, and that was saying something.

"Unbutton your collar" she commanded

Seras' eyes shot open in panic. Not missing a beat the Officer turned his eyes to the Master of Hellsing in curiosity.

"Why?"

The way he pronounced his s and w made his accent all the more pronounced.

"Unbutton your collar Officer, I am giving you a direct order" she said, her eyes narrowing.

In a second every possible scenario of her reaction as she saw the bite marks flashed through his mind and none of them were good and two of them were fatal. He knew, there was no point in hiding it but perhaps he could try to mislead her as little possibility of it there was. It was rather obvious who those bites came from.

He obeyed and unbuttoned his shirt down to his collarbone and Sir Hellsing in a single motion ripped off his bandage producing an involuntary ouch from the young man.

Two little dots of blood stained the otherwise virginal white cloth of the bandage.

Her eyes wandered to his neck as she moved his head to the side with her index and middle finger.

There were was a concentration of little scars on his neck around the same area and chief among them were two dark burgundy ones, no more than a week old.

"What happened to your neck Officer?" she asked, her expression easy.

The Officer's visage was frozen in a mild surprise, as if he half caught himself in the expression of pure shock before it got there and didn't want to give anything else away.

No words would come

"Officer, I've had men under these same circumstances shot on the spot and I am giving you the chance to explain" she said clearly, the murder in her eyes was clear.

Words came, the truth, but he wouldn't utter them.

_I am romantically involved with Seras Victoria, I love her and I've asked her to feed from me when she needs to._

It was one thing if he was finally shot but if what would happen to Seras? He would not allow that, although Integra really didn't need a reason to have either of them shot really. Still, he couldn't say about his Draculina, even if it might be in vain he had to shield her.

"That's private" he said respectfully

"Privacy in the Hellsing Organization is relative. I wouldn't take particular interest in your personal life but if you have decided to entertain a fetish for getting bitten by a vampire outside of the work sphere then I will shoot you"

"I never leave the Estate and even when I do it is with either Walter or yourself. I have no personal life outside of the Hellsing Estate or of the "work sphere" my whole life revolves around this place"

Integra's eyes narrowed in pleasure

She did enjoy the game of cat and mouse between them, it was refreshing to have an underling who was not afraid of her. The amount of mischief surrounding the young man however was not pleasurable at all.

"And yet you have those bite marks on your neck and no vampire to blame. Throughout the years we've had many of the creatures reside here and it's happened before and my family has dealt with it in….various ways. But since neither Alucard nor Seras would indulge in the act I'd like to know where those bite marks came from"

"From me" interjected Seras stepping up to the desk.

Integra's eyes narrowed as she slowly looked at the vampire. It was a narrowing gaze that gave the impression one was being targeted.

"You've been feeding from one of your co-workers? A friend? What would lead you to do this?"

"I asked her to"

Integra looked back at Siegfried in the same predatory manner she always did.

"And why would you do that?"

The German youth looked at Sir Hellsing with genuine defeat and sighed.

"Why do you think?"

Integra grimaced and asked "Why don't you tell me?"

Seras came to the Officer's side and helped him to his feet, their hands interlocked and stayed that way.

The master of the Hellsing Organization looked at their hands with disinterested surprise.

"It is ludicrous how the two of you thought to keep the fact that you are both involved with one another a secret for three months" she sighed quietly

Confusion flashed through their eyes as they waited for her to elaborate.

"It was quite obvious how taken you were with Seras since the day you set foot here" she mused at Siegfried.

"And it was quite obvious how you began to take to him as time went by. You are undead but you are still English, nipping him in public is quite inappropriate" said Integra to Seras who was turning scarlet.

As Integra leaned back into her chair she took another long drag of her cigar and glanced at the two of them.

"There are surveillance cameras in every room of this house and I have to say your little moment in the music room when you first asked Seras to bite you was quite….touching" she said in a sweet tone which was in stark contrast to her stern expression.

They both stood motionless, not knowing what to say. But for Integra it was quite obvious and her decided course of action was quite clear to her.

"I expect the two of you to behave responsibly about this whole affair. And I also expect the two of you to sleep in **separate rooms**" she said her words unchallenged.

They both nodded

"You are both dismissed"

Smiling the two of them left the room quietly only to embrace and giggle in relief as soon as they had left the room and were out of earshot.

Integra looked at the door, imagining them embrace in happiness. A nostalgic look dawned on her face and it died as quickly as she felt Alucard's presence in the room.

"You know, a romantic affair between and human and a vampire can never work" he said, the irony clear in his voice.

"Shut up, you bloody hypocrite. While I'd swear I must have taken the role of their mother at some point in the last week I'd prefer to let them learn that on their own"

"Oh?"

Integra's gaze poured on Alucard like venom.

"God knows both of them come from terrible places and the Hellsing Organization is even worse but-"

A kind glow came to her eyes as she pictured the way they held their hands. Their faces were neutral but their hands told her all she needed to know.

"If they can be happy for three more months or three more years I'd allow it. If they can be happy in this purgatory, hunting monsters and facing abominations with no end to the task then I'd allow them to be together"

"It won't last though" chuckled Alucard deliberately baiting her.

But Integra wise to this ignored him.

"Unless she turns him, it won't last" he whispered as he faded into the wall as quietly as he had appeared.

Integra clicked on her computer and brought up both their files.

Seras Victoria was an orphan who turned into a police officer after jumping from orphanage to orphanage due to behavioral problems. No doubt due to her parent's brutal murder.

Siegfried Weber was a murderer who fled Germany after his mother murdered his father and he killed her in turn, or so he said. Although he still had family he willingly ostracized himself from them.

Integra breathed deeply and closed both files. Alucard's words tasted like ash in her mouth, the turning of a human into a vampire always felt the same to her. Perhaps it was best if Siegfried did sleep with Seras, the Master of Hellsing would prefer killing a ghoul than having another fledgling about. Right now it didn't matter, they were both kids and as much as it could be allowed they should be able to be children.

_If they are happy, even for one more day I would allow it…_


	3. Chapter 3

The strum beating of the helicopter's wings was hypnotic as it was frightening. Every beat of the chopper blades falls upon one's heart like a miniature sonic boom. It made calming one's self a true struggle, that's if one was a member of Hellsing and knew what was to come. The black chopper zoomed through the night sky like a lazy albatross as it approached the target landing zone to disgorge its seated cargo.

Seras wore her usual mission attire, a white shirt over the mustard yellow Hellsing Uniform. Her white stockings stood out from the clothing and especially against her black combat boots. She held her over-sized cannon rifle like a walking stick, packs of ammunition were slung around her belt along with first aid and grenades among other things.

The little shield of the organization sat above her breast pocket like a dark rune.

While everyone in the helicopter was nervous, the Occultist's face hidden under his hood seemed to behave like a robot; still, unfeeling and unafraid.

With his leg bracers in place and his veins saturated in painkillers he could sprint and jump and kick like the rest of them. He felt good; he was no longer weak, he was armed and capable. It made him feel good that he was dangerous now, rifle slung across his chest. It felt good that he in a way didn't have to rely on his "talents" as much and could rely on something concrete and clean and human. Although for the good of the group he would have to make use of his abilities.

So be it

His usual jovial nature had evaporated as soon as he had donned his hood and cloak. There was knife work to be done and every time it was needed, every time he was required to kill it brought back bitter and painful memories from a time since before he had been found by his Draculina. Siegfried's opaque eyes wandered to his partner and looked at her from the tip of her head to the tip of her boots and he smiled. All of his bitterness was gone. Seras glanced to the doors before they opened. The pitch black doors of the helicopter swung ajar. Captain Pryce who led the mission yelled "Go, Go, GO". In perfect drilled order her men swung out of the chopper and rappelled down to the ground. When it was Seras' turn she spared a single glance at Alucard who sat at the back of the chopper, the crimson of his attire stood out by the bloody red lights of the holding cabin. He smiled at the Draculina, turning on her heel she simply jumped out and landed lightly on the chilled soil of the skirts of Havenbrook.

The chopper pulled away to the skies and the team stayed crouched amidst the grass.

Seras and the Officer looked to the squad leader. As the thump of the chopper faded the sounds of a dead village flowed to the squad of six their minds turned to the task ahead of them. As they sized up the village down the hills before them they felt something unnatural.

Nothing

Absolute silence

It was something that any blooded member of Hellsing could recognize instinctively. Where the dark supernatural was involved, nature took a step back and retreated. Where an abandoned village might still have sounds of some life in it either by environment or by wildlife, Havenbrook was cold as it was desolate. There was no breeze, none of the natural sounds of fauna graced the Scottish village. It was truly desolate, the only indication that there had been people were the crashed cars or splatters of blood that were still visible a hundred yards away on the walls of the outermost buildings. The sergeant looked at Seras and nodded then glanced disdainfully at the young man's leg bracers of which he now had two for balance. Gesturing to the village the group started out at a pace and in no hurry to get there. This was a wolf hunt, they were the bait that could strike back and there was no need for hubris.

As they approached the village, the smell of death was subtle because of age but clear in its mark of the town. The scent of gore and shit hung like a fog in the town. In the early darkness after the sunset the world was still the world, it had not yet taken a blacker tone.

Silently they made their way to the center of the village and it's plaza to the police station which was humble as it was durable and small but most of all; defensible.

According to the Siegfried a Blood Hunt made the wolfkin reckless. If one were to dangle people in front of them they would not resist the impulse to attack. Hence waiting for the werewolves to appear was the best option. Only when the wolves numbers had been utterly decimated would they retreat back into the wilds.

In theory

They had never faced the wolves, save Captain Pryce and they didn't know what to expect. Destroying ghouls had been simple, methodical work and this was as far away from that as one could get from the shuffling undead. Understandably, none of them were optimistic about the whole affair.

Within Siegfried's vast repertoire of knowledge concerning a great many abominations and unnatural creatures, only second to vampires, werewolves were the most unpredictable. Concerning this many, his entire hope for the success of the mission hinged on a misstep out of eagerness on part of the wolf men. And he made this very clear to the rest of his squad members. As they passed through the old cobblestone streets flanked by what might have once been lively houses and calm edifices. The buildings now seemed tainted by the silent brutality that hung inside them. Spatters of blood and giblets were scattered as were belongings that might have been dropped in panic or terror. The violent ends of the previous inhabitants of the village befouled the very air about the town in a spiritual sense, the crackle of stagnant tension webbed through the air, putting them all very ill at ease.

Night set as they reached the market area in which at the very end of the street was the police station at the T intersection.

"Are you sure they'll behave the way you said?" asked one of the soldiers at the Officer who kept pace between Seras and the Captain.

"Even the best plan can fail in the face of the reality of the situation" soothed the Occultist his eyes impassive and tone level.

"What he means to say is yes" began Captain Pryce, her voice deliberately loud as it was the intention that they should attract attention and an attack. She couldn't help but take a glance at Siegfried who had a polite little smile on his face, the kind which can erupt to a wide teeth-bearing grin. The kind which he displayed when they had first met and many times afterward and their interactions had been less than cordial. Quickly she had learned that prodding him with a taser as a prisoner was a bad idea; he could set off the taser in her waist pocket if he should choose to.

Bastard

"Once the wolves catch a scent, they won't stop" she rasped as if tasting something foul. Likely a bad experience.

Seras glanced at Siegfried as she followed the roof lines of the market buildings. He seemed to hesitate and clutch at his glasses which hung on the button hole of his left breast pocket.

"Something the matter love?" she asked as his eyes turned to her and he whispered "Halt".

The squad heard the tone in his voice and did so quietly.

"There's, there's something wrong" he said as his eyes became acute and agitated, jerkily he double checked his ammunition and handled his rifle while looking at the sword

"What do you mean?" ordered the Captain.

"Our presence, they know we are here. They are watching-" before he could finish a howl broke the silence of the dead village. A piercing, shrieking howl as if its singer was in agony and in rage. It was a sound that dug to the deepest recesses of one's mind where humans were once hunted; a primal fear. The squad froze and all of them noticed the fog rolling into the streets and how unnaturally dark it was becoming, like something was forcefully stifling the low light of the night. Seras focused her eyes, the soldiers flipped down their night vision goggles.

They could see nothing, no matter how they adjusted their visors or how hard the Draculina strained.

"Siegfried, what's going on?" whispered one of the soldiers through gritted teeth.

The young man's face was clearly marked with an alert fear that made him jerk around at angles down streets and to rooftops.

"It's circling us" he whispered like an incantation.

"What's circling us Officer? Elaborate right now" hissed the Captain who was taking aim down one of the main streets.

He looked unsure as his jerking brought him to look down an alley to the left of the small group.

Through the fog materialized a werewolf larger than anything they could have imagined. It stood towering over them with the body of a giant and talons as long as swords. Its ears stood erect like knives and about as sharp. Long, impossibly cruel teeth glinted in the shine of their flashlights as it sniffed the air. Otherworldly blue eyes focused on them, eyes like a virgin spring of mountain water and about as cold locked onto Seras' own. The monster snarled as it seemed to recognize the supernatural nature of the former police girl. The violent sound snapped the soldiers out of the paralysis the monster seemed to exert in simple, raw force of aura.

Barking ordinance, the Officer's automatic rifle spurted it's silver bullets at the wolf.

The young man's eyes widened in terror as the monster seemed only to wince at the damage, it looked at him and its lips drew back in what the Officer tried very hard to imagine was not the werewolf smiling at him.

Seras brought her cannon to bear and the wolf seemed to dematerialize into the black fog. Through the pitch black of the darkness that continued to close in on them the group's flashlights tracked around them trying to catch a glint of eyes. The scraping of claws on cobblestones was audible as was growling and snarling in every direction. Sometimes from only one alley or rooftop and seconds later from all at once.

"Don't bother, they won't look at you so you can't see their eyes until it's too late" breathed the Captain as she glanced at the German occultist.

"Light up right now!" she ordered.

Repressing the disgust of having to use his talents in front of Seras, the young man clenched his hands together and shuddered. A slight whisper in tongues was discernible to anyone who was listening.

A golden, watery light exploded from his fist which he held as high as he could with his rifle in the other hand.

The light broke the fog away into a white mist, the group froze as they saw the shapes of the feral wolf men, their yellow eyes wide and alert as dozens of eyes glared at them the blood-lust clear in their eyes. Three seconds ticked away like years between the monsters and the Hellsing soldiers. Every hundred milliseconds thundered like an eternity.

Guns fired into the shapes producing shrieking whines from the monsters. Bullets found homes in their sides or their faces, as the closest of the pack died some charged in to attack only to be blown in half by a booming cannon shell from Seras' gun. Those with more presence of mind retreated into the alleys or into houses. Two of the soldiers fired into the house where a clutch of the monsters charged into, in the blink of an eye one of the wolf men pounced from the mist and sunk its teeth into the chest of the man and jerked him away as his partner emptied half a clip into the wolf man only to be torn apart as one of the lycans jumped off the nearest building to throw him into an alley where it's pack mates awaited.

Two more resounding booms and the werewolf who was mauling the soldier dropped limply on top of him as half his body was missing now. The other shrieked as a hole was blown into its torso.

Siegfried broke the circle to grab onto the mauled soldier's jacket a painfully hoist the man onto his shoulders. He grunted as he felt his leg struggle despite the fact he felt no pain. The group ran towards the police station, the humans firing tactfully at the werewolves felling pairs of them at a time. They struggled with their shots as the Officer's hand was no longer in the air and the orb of light no longer gave them the visibility they needed. His hand shot out towards the soldiers in front to light the way, Seras and the Captain lagged behind him to cover the young man. More and more of the wolves fell, one of the other soldiers was tackled across the street and carried off to an alley as his partners struggled to fell the monster before it could take their comrade out of reach.

They failed

His screaming echoed through the streets higher than any of the growls or howls of the wolves.

Seras' cannon boomed and fired at an accuracy and speed that would be impossible for a human being to achieve. The Officer didn't bother look back to see if the wolves were upon him, he trusted his Draculina to keep him safe. And partly, if he was going to die he was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it.

Stoicism at its best

The group reached the police station and they broke down the door. The last thing the foremost soldier saw was the maw of one of the wolf men as its powerful jaws closed in on his face. The two remaining soldiers fired continuously into the monster until it fell then shoved into the station. Dragging their comrade's body into the station and pushing the wolf's out they shut the door. The inside of the station seemed oddly pristine and orderly. To Seras it was no real surprise, in Cheddar where she was a constable it was just Simon, Eddy and herself with the station manager Thomas. Their village was small enough to be looked after by four people.

Havenbrook was not much larger.

Laying the mauled soldier down on the floor to the back of the room the Occultist changed the clip on his rifle and pushed a desk against the wooden door. In a flurry of activity the two remaining soldiers slipped into the back of the station to make sure that the one werewolf that attacked them was the only one in the edifice. Captain Pryce ran to the armory to redistribute any additional ammunition or equipment that could prove useful. Seras reloaded her cannon and shoved a pair of heavy desks against the door with one hand as the Officer skirted out of the way.

The Captain returned empty handed and with a snarl on her face.

"Officer what the fuck was that?" she screamed at him

His eyes were impassive as they were dark

"I don't know" he began as the sound was drowned out by Seras firing at the broad window.

He knew what she was referring to. The alpha werewolf, it stood erect like a man, it smiled at them and was clever enough to shy away from Seras' gun. And the mist, the darkness that stifled the natural light of the night around them and the full moon above.

"I don't have an explanation for you. It's definitely the pack leader but its-" began Siegfried as he trailed off. He looked at the broad window and looked at Seras who was half glancing at him. She wanted an explanation too.

"I don't know what that werewolf is, its smarter than the rest definitely. I think it might still have its mental faculties of reasoning" he mused darkly as the mauled soldier stirred.

"That's impossible, they are animals nothing more" said the Captain as she attached a silver bayonet she didn't think she'd need to her rifle.

The Officer's eyes became grave and deathly severe, he had made the mistake of assuming and for that they had lost three men.

"It smiled at me when I shot it. You saw its eyes, it was thinking. More so just presenting itself to us is arrogance and confidence in its abilities" he reiterated, his voice laced with malice. "We should expect the worst, these monsters set up an ambush and they are clearly more intelligent than what I expected. They have packs but they never behave like this, you know this"

Siegfried took hold of the radio in his belt and yanked it to his mouth.

"Zero this is Three. We have four men down and we need Red, we are locked in the Police Station down Rye-street do you copy?"

Static buzzed for an instant until a smooth voice replied

"Three this is Zero, we have been called back a situation has arisen nearby and we've been ordered to redeploy"

His eyes darkened more, if that was possible, as he locked eyes with the Captain.

"What do you mean a situation?"

"The bulk of the contacts are heading towards another village, a larger more populated one. We cannot allow the situation to get out of hand so Red is being deployed to deal with this contingency. You are on your own good luck"

The radio then died out and a deathly silence settled in the room.

Another resounding boom shook the air around them and a far off scream followed it.

The Captain grimaced at Siegfried and hurried to the mauled soldier who began to sit up against the wall clutching weakly at his chest. Through his jacket protruded a snapped rib which he seemed only to vaguely recognize. The young man ran up to the soldier they had dragged out from under the werewolf who bit him to see if he was still alive. Upon turning him over the Officer drew away as he saw the soldier's eyes that were snapped open in an expression of terrified surprise. His throat had been torn open. It struck him as odd that he was not shocked by this, he realized grimly that he was becoming desensitized.

The Captain fired once into the head of the mauled soldier, without looking at anyone she trotted off to the two soldiers she could hear moving about in the cell block in the back.

Seras nor the young man said anything for a moment. The mauled soldier was going to turn into one of the wolf men and that was if he didn't bleed to death first which by the look of his uniform and the tiles around him, not to mention the Occultist's jacket was not too far off.

The Draculina squatted in the furthest point away from the window and trained her cannon in its direction. The Officer drew next to her and kneeled on his good leg. He felt something crack as he did so, ignoring the fact that when the painkillers wore off he was going to be in agony he remained in his position.

They both heard the low sounds of speech between the soldiers and the Captain in the back. Neither of them moved and neither of them cared what they were talking about. The young man looked at the watch on his left wrist.

_9:34 pm_

_Fuck_ he thought to himself

His gun continued to trace the outside and he gripped it hard enough to turn his knuckles white. He hadn't relied on his powers as much as he should have, he had assumed the werewolves had were simple creatures and three men had lost their lives. Siegfried's heart rate began to rocket as anger swelled in his heart.

He was so feeble, stupid, inadequate and useless. These long imprinted feelings came and were received by indifference. They had been part of his self perception and after all these years, after being hammered into him it did not distress him anymore. He soldiered on no matter if it was a fool's errand or how insurmountable the task or how many mistakes he made. It was not his place to argue only to obey, so said his mother

He might be useless, but he was nothing if not determined to accomplish whatever goal was given to him.

Siegfried looked over as he felt Seras' hand rest on his shoulder as she spared him a single long look.

"What's wrong?" she asked as her eyes and his returned to the window and the barricaded door.

His eyes soothed as he repressed the feelings.

"Nothing"

Seras remained silent for a long while. She was scared to death, this was the first time she had ever fought an enemy who could strike back. Ghouls, lone vampires and the sort didn't count.

These were true monsters; they hunted, attacked and killed without hesitation. Her mind wandered to what had become of her life but it did not linger there, she had had enough long weeks and hours to contemplate that. Her mind wandered to Master, would he be ok? Of course he would, but she felt an instinctive tug to go to his side and stand by him against the wolves right now, all she could do is watch the window. There was nothing else she could do. An hour passed in silence and not a sound came from the village. The Captain and the two other soldiers held the back of the station, for now all they could do is hunker down and wait till morning. They were outclassed and outnumbered, going outside would be suicide.

Another hour passed and only clumsy attempts were being made to enter the Police Station were deterred by grenades from the soldiers or cannon shots from Seras. Everything quieted after a while. Each side was deadlocked with the other.

Seras stayed beside the young man as they continued to watch the window.

She looked at him as she took a deep breath in order to relax, her mind sifted through warm memories. Intimate moments, days where they laughed till their sides hurt, small adventures and days where he would just looked at her for long moments without saying anything, only a wide smile on his face. Days in which she could not stand him in the beginning and days where she felt anxious for no discernible reason that she could recognize at the time. Her butterflies stirred as she remembered the days where he'd walk up behind her and embrace her tightly but gently as a friend and later on as a flame. Her heart missed a beat when she recalled the sweet nothings he'd whisper to her.

"Every day, I'll make you fall in love with me again" he said to her as his lips skirted her neck before be gave her a butterfly kiss.

_Romantic bastard _she scoffed to herself the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Her mind stopped as she began to think about him as a person.

_He was born in……_

_His parent's names are……_

Although her expression didn't show it overly much she began to panic internally.

_Ok, ok something simple_

_His favorite food is……_

_His favorite color is……_

As she strained to find the answers she realized she didn't know the answers to the questions. Or any question really.

_In six months, I-I don't know anything about him……_

"Siegfried" she began, "Let's play twenty questions".

He didn't shift his eyes from the window and only glanced down the side of the gun at his wrist.

_11:55 pm_

His eyes resumed watching the window and the darkness outside.

"Sure"

Before she opened her mouth she considered how she could play the game. Maybe he didn't know a lot about her either.

"Where and when was I born?" she asked him

"December 19th, 1979 in London"

"What's were my parent's names?"

"Todd and Mary" he answered smoothly

"What's my favorite food?"

"Me" he said as a grin spread across his face. She punched him weakly as the realization hit her that every little detail she had ever said to him about herself he knew.

"What's my favorite color?"

"Orange" he answered brightly

The Occultist's smile lessened, in his head he knew where she was going with this and what was bothering her. He looked over at her as she frowned bitterly.

"What's the matter darling?" he whispered as he tried to appeal for a smile as much as he could while aiming a gun.

Seras looked away then back at the window, that broad fucking window and the blood on where the shells had found their targets. With a grimace that seemed like a concession on part of her pride she scraped the answer out of her gut and managed to say it.

"It-it just struck me as amazing that I know absolutely nothing about you and you've learned every little thing I've ever told you about me"

Siegfried looked at her and his eyes softened.

"If you ever want to know anything you need only ask"

She glanced at him questioningly. He had never spoken about himself in any capacity to anyone, save Integra to whom he owed his life albeit unwillingly.

"But you clam up whenever Pryce or Walter or Master ask you about certain things"

"Because it is not their business however casual the topics might seem. But you are my girlfriend Seras you can ask, how much do you feel you are entitled to know?"

She smiled shamefully at him

"Everything but, I'd only push to know whatever you feel comfortable telling me"

The young man looked at her knowingly, like an old man looks at a child who is boundlessly curious about him.

"Then ask whatever you like" he said as his countenance remained impassive with only a slight, polite smile on his face as he continued to scan the outside.

"Where and when were you born?"

"Berlin on December 18th 1978" he stated simply

Seras' eyes widened, it was a pleasant surprise the realization that they were both born almost on the same date.

"You're older than me?"

"Ja" he said as his grin became a smile

"So you turn twenty one this winter?"

"Ja, assuming of course we are still alive. May I ask why did that make you smile? Like older men do you?" he teased which produced another punch from her which he returned.

"No, I've never really-" she began as she trailed off. As a child she had been violent towards boys which in their majority bullied her, she always associated them with her parent's murderers. As an adolescent she felt uncomfortable in their company and with their clumsy attempts to flirt. In fact she refrained from making any friends so she could be left alone. Only as an adult did she come out of her shell because nobody had any control over her. And along came Siegfried.

"I've never really connected with many people. You are the only boy who's not afraid of me and who wasn't trying to use me" she said as she smiled at him lovingly.

He smiled fondly, it was such an innocent assumption on her part however true it was. He tightened his hand around the handle of his gun as to hurt himself.

_Bastard, this is Seras you are thinking about. Don't you **dare **hurt her._

He would never, but the thoughts. The ever present dark thought swam through his mind, unused. It was the part of him that was of his mother he felt, with disgust.

"What about you, have you ever had anyone before me?"

"Why do you ask?" a wicked smile split his face.

Seras turned red as she shoved him but didn't really say anything.

"I'm just curious"

He smiled and stroked her back

"Five girls four of them older than myself"

The Draculina glanced at him, hanging on his every word.

"All of which ended up being disasters. I learned much but break ups are seldom civil among young adults I think"

Seras' mind wandered back to when she first bit him and she realized he was a virgin. She felt a little ashamed when she realized she liked that fact that he hadn't slept with anyone yet.

"A heartbreaker were you?" she teased as his smile lessened a bit.

"Nein, I've been dumped five times but have had my heart broken twice" he said in a tone she couldn't recognize.

Her expression was a little pained

_Why would anyone be foolish enough to dump you? _she mused

"What are your parent's names?" she asked

Without missing a beat he responded

"Otto und Ada"

"Did you have any siblings?"

"Ja, a younger sister named Odette"

Seras looked at him excitedly again, pleasant shock on her face.

"You have a younger sister? Where is she?"

The Officer's face darkened almost imperceptibly

"At my grandparents' house"

"Why not with your parents?"

"They are dead"

Memories of her parent's flashed through her mind along with a million different bitter emotions.

"I'm sor-"

"Don't be"

Seras' countenance turned to confusion, the Officer seemed to struggle internally until he chocked the words out of his mouth. In a pang of internal panic he began to divulge carefully filtered words.

"Seras I love you" he began as he analyzed every expression on her face which was wariness.

"I haven't asked you about your family or your parents because who you were before Hellsing does not matter to me, you are my Seras and that's enough. Und two, your being in Hellsing to start with suggests to me that something might have happened with your family; how do you explain this to your kin that you are a vampire and make it seem normal? I'd guess they are either dead or you don't speak to them or at all"

_Clever_ Seras thought offhandedly as her expression remained just as careful.

"There are things about me I am ashamed of; my powers to start with. And as to my family I just want the luxury of forgetting"

Seras put her hand on his shoulder

"I don't want to tell you certain things because I don't want to have a past to you. I'd prefer if you thought of me as just me instead of the Kraut who-" he trailed off as he caught himself before he said too much.

"I love you, there is nothing you could say to me that would change how I feel about you or how I think of you" said Seras solemnly as she tried to soothe him. She meant it, but she also knew that she was on the cusp of some deep secret of his, she couldn't resist not trying to find out.

The look on the Occultist's face was bitter as it was hesitant but the words found their way out of his heart as he had long rehearsed them in his mind.

"I don't want to say"

The Officer didn't know it could get quieter than it already was. He was sure he could hear his own heartbeat now. Seras looked at him in an indescribable way: it looked like a cross between disappointment and betrayal. And more so he understood why and it was completely justified.

"Why?"

A slight shudder rippled through his visage as he looked down the barrel of his gun. He could almost feel his mother's wry giggling laughter.

"Because I want the luxury of forgetting everything that led to my coming to Hellsing"

Seras looked down the sight of her gun as the Officer stared at her. His hand wandered to her side and despite her usual warmth of character she felt very cold now.

"Don't you trust me enough to tell me everything?" she whispered

Siegfried's eyes became pained as he drew on his experiences from past relationships and resigned himself to the end of his current affair. He understood that to Seras for whom it was her first romance and he her first love, keeping secrets would be viewed as a breach of trust. He wouldn't mind if she kept secrets from him but.

She didn't

He wouldn't divulge anything to just any woman but Seras was special, she was an open book and he was not. Shame shaded his heart.

"Seras it is not about trust, I just don't want to tell you certain things"

"Why not?"

"Do I ask you about your family?"

"No, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't tell you everything about me if you asked" she parried calmly.

"Really?" he said his voice laced with pessimism.

Seras only gave him a hurt look then resumed looking down the barrel of her gun. She wondered if this was what a fight felt like? She had never had one before, it was; distressing and unpleasant.

"How are your parents?" he asked blankly

"They are dead" she answered her tone resentful as she glanced at him.

He didn't even flinch, he kept watching the window.

"Why?" he asked in the same monotone voice.

"My father, Todd, was in the police force he went undercover and he got in too deep. Two men came into the house and shot my mother and father to death. I was eight"

Her incredulity grew as the Officer's eyes stayed just as glassy and impassive behind his glasses.

_Fucking bastard_

"My mother put me in a closet and-" she began as the words were cut in her throat. She had not told anyone this before in her life and the young man was like a brick wall: unfeeling but there, ready to listen.

"I saw them shoot her…… I stepped out and I grabbed a fork. I ran to the man who shot her and stabbed him in the eye, he shot me and I fell down. I couldn't move, or think or breathe"

Her eyes mourned and tears streamed down her face despite the fact her expression was just as steely as it was an hour ago. She could feel in her body and in her mind all the remnants of the things she felt that day, and the Officer felt more and more like those men who had ruined her life.

"Th-they raped my mother's body"

She looked at him, he was just as unfeeling as a piece of ice. His countenance was calm and steady as if the only thing that existed was the broken window.

_Why? Why won't you say anything? I've never told that to anyone, why won't you hold me? Tell me you are there for me? WHY WON'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?_

Her lips drew back in a snarl at the Officer, when she was a breath away from screaming at him she noticed his hands were shaking.

"I-I am ashamed" he said as his eyes seemed to radiate hate towards her as he clenched his jaw and yet it seemed to be meant for another.

"Stop right there"

"Bu-"

"Stop talking" muttered Seras as she focused on the window in turn wiping her eyes as the young man looked at her.

The German boy wavered as he resumed looking at the window, his gun slid off the side of the table they took cover behind and he sat on his side. Siegfried briefly considered lying to her. She would swallow any story he chose to tell her. His mother's face again shot across his mind and he felt a grip of self-disgust. He would not be like her, ever.

"I murdered my mother" the words hung in the air as he resigned himself to the truth.

Seras looked over at him momentarily in what was incredulity and confusion.

"My mother one night stabbed my father to death, when she took her eyes off me I stabbed her to death and slit her throat"

His eyes shut as misery overtook them.

"Seras, you are not just a woman to me. I am in love with you, do you understand? I am **in love** with you. How am I supposed to tell you that I killed my mother and expect you to stay with me? The thought of you leaving it-"

The Draculina's eyes became stern as she silenced him with but a look.

"You wanker. You can tell me anything. I love you, I have no intention of leaving you, so don't be afraid and don't keep secrets from me"

"I'm sorry"

"You should be"

And just like that, it was done. Siegfried couldn't believe it. Just like that she accepted him and what more she was so casual about it. Pessimism nagged at his mind. He was aware that the murder of his mother would not be so simple to disregard, but for the time being it was enough.

Before the words "I don't know what to do" slipped out of his mouth he leaned over turned her chin to him and kissed her warmly. He pulled away slightly as he glanced again at the window and the descending moon. It would have struck him as stupid: to tell your partner anything and everything. But with Seras, she still possessed that sense of true love that so many who had just found it had.

He realized she must have seen him in a way as perfect and their love infallible. It was not unreasonable, he himself had felt as much twice.

_If only_ he thought

"I am ashamed that you'd tell me something so personal and I wouldn't. I'm here for you even if you don't need me. I won't keep anything from you ever again"

Seras smiled at him, she felt something click in her mind. She understood now Siegfried was human.

He did have fears which were concrete

He did have secrets which were now open to her.

He did have insecurities which now she could see and maybe help change them and make him into a better person.

It sounded absurd but she could see it now. All during the six months they had been together he always seemed to know everything, he seemed to be immune to fear and was savvy enough even for Integra. But seeing this side of him, she could see now he did have in fact have weaknesses.

As did she

It warmed her heart to see he had the same fears about their relationship that she did. They were both on the same page. She felt her feet were closer to earth now.

Looking at one another they didn't notice the large shadow rocketing towards them through the darkness of the street outside. Bounding past the dead bodies of its kin, slobbering on its matted hair as powerful legs brought it closer and closer to the fresh meat it lanced through the window.

The two humans, a male and a female were not alert. Its talons outstretched and as they arced to swipe at them, to end his life and to infect the female, and perhaps succeed in mating with her, it felt something tug at its heart. The female saw it at the last moment, her mouth opened as she screamed in surprise and the cannon struck him in the stomach as it fired its ordinance.

The werewolf's midsection exploded.

A shout rang from the back of the station

"What happened? Officer Weber report!"

The young man and Seras looked at one another. Both of them had the same exact thought; would this be the story of their lives? To fight the creatures that go bump in the night until they died?

The pack leader saw what had happened to its pack mate of the few he had made to remain with him as he sent the rest to attack another human village. If he created chaos elsewhere the humans here would be abandoned until the sun rose.

He squatted and listened carefully, his chance would come. Ghostly blue eyes traced the moon as she disappeared and the sun kissed the horizon as it rose.

The Officer looked at his clock and smiled as he verified the numbers on his wristwatch and the sky which was being painted in mauve and tangerine to the left of the station.

_7:45 am_

Fifteen minutes until the sun rose. They had made it!

He showed her the watch and both of them had a collective sigh of relief.

"Good, I was out of ammunition" said Seras with a morbid smile on her face she counted the corpses of the wolf men outside, as the sun rose they reverted to human bodies. Men and women and some children littered the streets as she sun's warmth rose.

"Fifteen more minutes and we can go outside!" shouted the Captain from the back.

"Jawohl!" shouted the Officer back

He looked at Seras and his arm wrapped around her protectively. This is the first time she'd been caught out of Hellsing when the sun was out. He felt the instinctive need to shield her from the sun that was not there yet.

Both of them stood and the Officer felt his bad leg snap and crack in ways he was not comfortable with. The cramp in his leg was getting worse, he was sure that by now the painkillers had worn off but the night's exertions and the residue of the medicine in his body was dulling a pain that would bloom as soon as he went to rest.

As he checked his clip he limped out towards the window with Seras following him closely. His eyes scanned the carnage outside and the streets where it lay.

"We made it" he sighed as he leaned on her for support.

Seras shoved him out of the way and he fell on his good leg.

Something pulled and snapped.

The young man shrieked in agony as the nerves that had been long protesting found a way through to his brain. Every nerve in his left leg was screaming as if it was on fire. But every cell in his body surged with terror as he saw why Seras had just shoved him out of the way.

The Draculina was locked in combat with the alpha werewolf. Although Seras was a tall woman and the werewolf was not much taller, it dwarfed her in ferocity and pure mass. Seras' eyes were wide open as she ducked and weaved around the swipes and snapping bites from the monster.

She screamed for the Captain only to hear gunshots coming from the back door of the Police Station.

Fueled by desperation and an instinctive need to protect her beloved and to flee from the sun she caught the monster's hand and swung her entire body into a kick that smashed dead into the side of the monster.

The creature recoiled and smiled at her, that terrible abominable smile.

It swiped at her again with both hands, a talon clipped her thigh as she backed away and struck with renewed force upon the animal. Her fists landed on flesh like rubber and bones like iron. Each one of its swipes that found her flesh burned like steam upon flesh and slowly she began to lose.

Open wounds that would not close made her movements sluggish as the werewolf began to simply land blow after hammering blow upon her.

The monster looked down the street and to the hills and saw the edge of the golden discus rise upon the world. He grabbed the Draculina by the arms and smiled again, he turned her towards the sun.

Her eyes shot open as the sun began to creep slowly but surely out of the horizon.

A spray of bullets slapped into the werewolf's back as a limping Occultist fired at the monster to release her.

The beast in two long strides closed the distance between itself and the young man. With one powerful arm it threw, not unlike a rag doll, the soldier into the angled roof of one of the houses.

He slammed upwards into the rooftop scraping and slicing his face then rolling downwards almost sliding off to his doom before he rolled onto his stomach and scrabbled for a hold. Gripping on for dear life he found purchase on one of the shingles. Drawing his handgun he fired clumsily at the werewolf as it turned again to mind the sun that rose like death approaching.

Her eyes were locked onto the sun, it ascended and came like an angry impetuous God; like the end of the world. Only when she realized that her young man existed did she pry her head away from the rising orb. Seras arced her head back enough to see the Officer scrape at the roof of the third story of a house.

His fingernails scrapped the ceramic tiles of the roof his hand's strength failing him.

Like an agonizing year she watched him fall on the street, back first, into the cobblestones.

As his head smashed into the street there was a snapping, audible crack.

The Occultist's broken body remained still, his unresponsive dark eyes locked onto the receding stars.

Seras shrieked and fought, her eyes began to turn red as she began to snap the monster's grip until the sun washed over the pair. The Draculina's skin burned like a chemical reaction, it scarred over like a burn victim's only to re-scar then to be burned and to re-scar again. Her hair singed off and her eyes began to turn grey as the live began to be ripped from her body.

The werewolf, completely given over to his curse, smiled at the struggling vampire who had no such advantage yet.

Her screams echoed like a wheezing death rattle, like a harpy that was being shoved into a wood chipper.

A death that seemed to last forever shrieked in protest as the life was being burned away from its shell.

Eyes shifted from the stars to the source of the noise. The body felt a wetness on the back of its head as it began to regain its consciousness.

Lightning struck in its heart and hatred burned like a star. Ignoring the agony in its leg and the lack of motor responses in parts of its body the figure got up and half hobbled to the monster.

The creature looked back fast enough to see the young man's fist connect with its side.

An indescribably white pain reverberated throughout its body as lightning licked out where it had singed its hair. The monster dropped the burning vampire and howled as the Officer shrieked back. The man's eyes were feral, hatred flowed into his arm and jerked out his hand imagining very hard that the monster was his mother.

A violent violet fork of lightning struck the werewolf and where it had been a moment before was a splatter of organic matter. The monster had been literally disintegrated.

Without missing a beat the Siegfried ripped off his jacket and threw it on the burning vampire that in desperation regained its strength enough to throw herself onto him.

The young man gagged, she smoked and smelled of ash and rotting meat.

Sheltering her from the sun he picked her up and ran into the Police Station just as the Captain and the two other soldiers ran out to assist them.

The legs fell out from under the Officer as Seras was laid down on the floor of the station. The young man fell on his side and began to hyperventilate, his head swam and his eyes wouldn't focus. His insides rolled as if he was falling and his spine tingled. He felt like he wasn't real anymore, he was falling through an endless chasm and melting into the cold hard floor. Before splattering down and reforming into his usual form.

Speech and words became incoherent, he couldn't understand what the Captain and the woman without a face were saying to him. Pryce pulled him off the wall and pawed the back of his head carefully before sitting him back up and yelling into her radio.

Something clicked in him as the desperation in the woman grew and he saw the remainder of the blue in her grey eyes. Through the third degree burn on her face he saw the woman he loved. His heart soared and his arms wrapped around her body. He looked at her with frightened eyes and breathed deeply through his mouth as words sighed out of him.

"My mother was an occultist; she killed my father to complete a ritual"

"I raised my Odette since she was born"

"You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I am happy, concretely happy. You are an angel, I want to be with you so long as you want me"

Tears flowed out of his eyes and his words intensified as did his speed of speech.

"I want to do everything with you, I want to be with you forever, I want to marry you I-I"

He began to laugh uninhibitedly as he saw Seras' charred face. She was so beautiful. Siegfried embraced her and stroked her back fondly. Seras heard the chopper long before Pryce did and she was the first to hoist him on her back while being covered in his jacket and dash to the helicopter. Just how badly his head wound was she didn't know. But she couldn't let him die. She **would **not.

As the helicopter landed in Hellsing a team of doctors handled the Occultist to the medical wing. All the while Siegfried was giggling and smiling like a child. As he was carried into Hellsing by Seras he continued to shoot off question after question and he began to look progressively more confused.

"Where are we going?"

"To Hellsing Siegfried. Are you ok?"

"Ja, ja I am alright. Do we live there?"

"Siegfried you're scaring me" shuddered Seras as she held his hand, he was completely unaware of what was happening. The doctor snapped his fingers to get the Occultist's attention and followed through by testing how coherent he was in motor function.

"Sorry darling" answered Siegfried as he smiled placidly.

"C'mon" said Captain Pryce as she tugged the agitated Draculina away. "Don't worry Siegfried. Seras will be right outside okay?"

"Who?" asked Siegfried as they set him on the operating table. He was shot with anesthesia and the doctor put him under.


	4. Chapter 4

Seras sat alone in her dark, stony room by her vanity mirror. Everything felt alien to her: her bed, her room, her new life, Integra, Master. She felt off balance in every sense of the word, she could not sleep soundly, nor eat or rather drink. Everything in her life felt shifted and addled in a way that only pivotal moments in life can send one's perception of reality into disarray.

The day after being airlifted from Havenbrook a large force of operative and cleanup crews landed to cover up what had really happened. It was impressive how many how large a helicopter fleet Hellsing could boast.

She tasted the headline in her head

_Havenbrook overtaken by a mass hysteria, 134 dead and 56 missing in a village wide riot. It has been suggested the some form of cannibalism was involved._

Everything had settled down in the twenty four long days since.

Seras continued her days in the monotony they had possessed since before the young German man had graced them with the adventure of his manhunt and eventual capture in the streets of London. Despite the fact she had washed her hands dozens of times she could still feel the blood from the back of his head on them. After he saved her his body shut down and so did his mind.

He was in a comma because of his head injury.

She felt hopeful though, his vitals were strong and steady. He was determined to live, thank God. Though the doctors were unsure how badly his mind might have been altered because of the injury, mainly because the parts of the brain that handle inhibitions received the brunt of the blow, overall the most they could speculate was that he'd be a little "off" in behavior if not outright disoriented about everything. The ramifications or possibilities thereof were frightening to wonder about, Seras wasn't sure if she had heard right but she could have sworn he didn't know her name when Pryce mentioned it.

However, though he was in a comma, his brain activity was obscenely high, it was as if he was in some form of deep dreaming sleep.

As his brain rewired itself and recovered from the damage done to it by the hard cobblestones of Havenbrook, Seras had a long time to contemplate what he had said to her, the state of their relationship and what it meant, what it could mean. She loved him, but now that he was laying in his room hooked up to an array of machines she had the peace of mind to truly think.

Something had clicked out of place and she felt lost.

What he had said to her: that he wanted to marry her. She was overjoyed at the time and would have said yes on the spot but now, thinking twice, she was sure she definitely didn't want to.

The thought scared her

There were so many things about him she didn't know about, after that one night in Havenbrook she began to question everything about him. What kind of family did he come from that there were rituals involved and homicide? That lightning he shot from his hand. How much of his powers was he really letting on? Also, she realized he was a skilled liar and manipulator. Had he lied to her? And if so, how much? Was he using her, or looking to? How much of their relationship was based on his designs? Had she fallen for him because he made it so? Were his feelings genuine?

Who was he exactly?

She had tasted his blood and seen things, she knew he was essentially good but the million little things that made him up were still nebulous. Yet the thought of him trying to use her nagged at her nerves. She purged the little musing forcefully, she was sure he'd never do that, or hoped so. But the thought wouldn't go away, it came again and again like an angry hornet. Every time it did return it brought back a slew of memories from when Siegfried behaved like a sociopathic bastard to her and the rest in Hellsing. But on the second wave of feelings that came as she considered the trappings of his person: this was her German. Memories, warm, intimate memories flowed through her mind of days were they both at the beginning couldn't stand one another (after he had stopped being a wanker). And days were they were deliriously happy. Those first few weeks of civil interactions with one another they usually avoided talking and their interactions were limited to his half baked escape attempts which always ended in the same thing: him slung across her shoulders complaining in German. But gradually he began to approach her more and he was warm if anything. In the early evening many months ago he was going on a walk in a little circuit around Hellsing and he bumped into her, this was a usual routine for both of them but usually they didn't interact beyond eye contact. But one day, he turned on his heel and kept pace by her. He followed by her quietly only sparing the occasional glance at her which were accompanied by looks and expressions she couldn't describe, it was as if he was considering some impossible problem to be solved.

Slicing into the English breeze and the crunching of their boots on the gravel about Hellsing he spoke quietly to her, as if he was a friend.

"_Do you remember why we hate each other Miss Victoria?"_

"_Because you are a wanker"_

_"Es tut mir leid"_

_"Come again?"_

_"I'm sorry"_

Seras looked at him gently as if softening up because of his apology and his sweet tone.

_"Well you should be, you've been nothing but disrespectful to Integra and Master and you've been **nothing** but cruel to me"_

Siegfried gave her a look like he was genuinely remorseful

_"Again, I am sorry, it was not always in my nature to be this way"_

_"Then why are you? What have we ever done to you?"_

The Occultist lanced a tactful gaze at her like a well thrown javelin

_"However pathetic my state might have seemed when you all found me, I do prefer my freedom than to being forced to use my powers for someone's end and I resent being kept here"_

_"You seemed to have gotten quite used to it. You are even buying things for your room"_

_"Hellsing grows on you, I think"_

_"I agree, but I do know how you feel. I wanted to live when Master rescued me, I didn't mean to end up here, but here I am"_

_"And you do not resent this?"_

The Draculina seemed to consider the question for a moment before divulging her thoughts, for a moment she forgot who she was speaking to. The truth was that no one had ever really asked her how she felt about it. Or even if she was happy. Even if he wasn't asking about her happiness, inquiring if she resented Hellsing was the closest thing she had ever heard to it since she arrived there.

_"No, I do not. There are good, brave people there and there is a sense of camaraderie that I felt while being a police officer"_

_"Ah, die Polizei. You don't seem like the type for it"_

_"What's that supposed to mean?"_

_"I meant no offense, its just that when I consider die Polizei your face wouldn't come to mind"_

_"Oh yeah? Then what did Mr. Weber want to do with his life?"_ she reiterated with a hint of mocking in her voice.

He looked at her softly and smiled earnestly

_"I wanted to be an English teacher and a writer"_

Seras looked at him curiously. Come to think of it, he really didn't fit the picture either but when he said it he seemed to be a natural.

_"What made you choose to be a police officer?"_

Deflecting real answer to the question, she answered brusquely:

_"Because I hate criminals...especially murderers"_

The Occultist's face remained as cheerful as it had been a minute ago, but his eyes became hesitant and a shade of shame glazed over them.

_"Do you hate all murderers indiscriminately?"_

_"Yes"_

_"Even ones who might have had good reason to? Morally at least"_

_"Mr. Weber, **nothing** can morally justify the taking of another's life for whatever petty reason"_

_"Even in defense of one's family?"_

_"Um- I-. No that's ok"_

Siegfried's eyes darkened if only slightly as he breathed deeply

_"Don't be so quick to judge, seemingly horrible acts can have a silver lining"_

_"Such as?"_

_"Killing someone who would be trying to kill you"_

_"That's self defense and its legal"_

_"What about living in a house with two other people and one kills the other. I am under no threat by the murderer, can I still kill him?"_

_"Call the police"_

_"What if the victim was dear to you?"_

_"Call the police"_

_"So you would not murder a killer who finishes……let's say your beloved husband?"_

_"That's kind of a drastic example"_

_"But you see my point"_

She smiled at him, he was smart and this was an intriguing conversation. Seras realized how lonely she had been since she arrived at Hellsing, between getting orders and training there had been nothing to speak to but her own shadow. How many conversations could they have had if he hadn't been behaving like a twat?

"_Call me Seras"_

"_Jawohl Fräulein_"

After that they preferred each other's company and a time after that she ended up in the music room drinking from his neck.

There were nights were Seras cried herself to sleep in his medical room trying to wake him up by sheer force of will. Others she sat reservedly in a chair watching him, pondering the ways to tell him she wanted to leave him. She took back what she had said about not caring about the murder, it did matter. It tinted his person.

As the days rolled by she forcibly took over the nursing responsibilities of the comatose young man: she always fed him, bathed him and sang to him at times. Something she had outright refused to do when he was awake. He really did long to hear her sing.

If there was one thing she was sure of despite her thoughts of leaving him was that she loved him, she mused that perhaps that feeling of being trapped is part of a relationship. She had been that good of a partner to him that he wanted to marry her. But she couldn't wrap her had around it. She just needed space, she couldn't accept what he said and she felt cornered. Why would he want to marry her in the first place anyway? Was it a trap? Did he just want to sleep with her?

Or had that marriage proposal been part of the head injury?

She kicked herself internally for her paranoia, she could feel Siegfried could lie with the best of them but she didn't feel he would do that to her. He did spill his guts about his mother after all and about her murder even after knowing all about her position on the matter.

At any rate, it was eight o clock and it was time to feed him his potato soup.

Seras trotted up the stairs and through the labyrinthine, rough stone corridors were she and Master dwelt and she opened the door to the manor proper, she slid into the kitchen and ladled a full bowl of the creamy soup that smelled like hell to her. Funny thing about vampirism, it does put you off food for good. Following the route she had knew by instinct she came up to his room and instantly felt something was wrong. He wasn't on his bed and the doctor was searching desperately for him.

"What happened? Where is he?" she asked as she nearly dropped his food.

"I don't know ma'am. He's missing" answered the doctor who looked very much like he feared Integra would have his head for losing the Occultist.

Seras bolted from the room and looked through the hallways, she ran towards Integra's office, her heart thundered in her chest.

Where was he?

Integra stepped out of the manor for a moment as she took a deep drag from her cigar. Her mind cycled through the day's tasks and endless reports, her mind eventually wandered to the Officer. She wondered how long it would take him to wake up and her mind considered how useful he would be if he had memory damage.

Her eyes caught themselves on the large fountain in front of the manor, she could see something moving around in it.

She walked over to it fingering the gun in her jacket purely out of habitual care before she realized it was a body moving around in the water.

Squinting she could see the glasses and the long black hair.

It was Siegfried

She ran over just about to yell at him when she noticed his expression and what he was doing.

He was floating about the humongous fountain around its little circuit giggling.

She stepped to the edge of the fountain as he came around the deep. A small school of sweet water fish were following him as he floating nibbling at little wounds here and there. He had a blissful and almost childish smile on his face as he bumped into lily pads.

"Officer Weber, what are you doing?" she asked neutrally.

It took the young man a couple of seconds to recognize the sound as a voice and the words as a question aimed at him.

His eyes opened behind his glasses and Integra gazed into him with an expression of deep curiosity on her face. His eyes had changed from their almost black pigmentation to a bright lively lavender.

He dipped to into the water to his chin warily.

The Officer's expression seemed to suggest he didn't recognize her right away. His eyes studied her face with a slow, methodical pressure.

"I know you" he said to the face, not to her.

Integra took a deep breath, she hoped to God he didn't have amnesia or permanent brain damage.

"Do you know my name? Do you know yours?"

He looked at her coyly "I know my name" he answered.

His eyes looked at her skin and her eyes then at her hair and recognition flashed through his expression.

"Sir Integra Fairbook Wing Gates Hellsing?"

"That's Fairbrook Wingates"

"Is it?"

"Yes"

Seemingly satisfied with the conversation he dipped into the murky waters of the pseudo fountain pond and swam around under, the only indication her was there was the small school of fish that followed.

She looked at the spot where he had been a moment before and her mind clicked and whirred trying to put a name on what had happened to him just then; his expression, his tone of voice, his eyes. How was his mind working?

If she didn't know any better she'd say he seemed like a different person.

Resurfacing seconds later he continued his circuit only minding the fish. Integra could see a few droplets of blood dripping from the wet gauze around his head.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she studied his every expression and reaction.

"Swimming"

"I can see that, but why?"

The young man looked at her as if it was perfectly obvious.

"I am happy of course! I am alive" he said as his demeanor softened and his expression turned to bliss. He didn't seem to be referring to the trauma that he had suffered through twenty four days ago, Integra got the impression he referred to life in general.

It was a calm, fulfilled bliss that exhumed from his expression as little fish continued to pool around him.

"Do you remember what happened at Havenbrook?"

The Officer's expression was neutral as it was quiet

"Ja, I can't remember how I go back here but ja, I remember the wolf men and the fighting"

"And how do you feel about that" asked Integra as she measured how oddly cool his expression was in comparison to the traumatic experience.

He simply pointed to the sky at the crescent moon and uttered:

"The sky is smiling and so am I"

The young man seemed oddly desensitized about the mission as Integra carefully asked him about what happened. She had the combat reports from the survivors, the Captain and Seras and while she talked him through what happened he simply didn't mind, it's as if he had seen it happen but it didn't happen to him.

The emotions and the experiences did not tie to the memories.

"So you remember up till 5 am before you were all rescued?"

"Ja"

"And why are you in the fountain? It's not for swimming you know"

The Officer looked at her curiously as he seemed to remember that not every large body of water was acceptable for swimming despite it was perfectly good for it. Not seeming to be pleased with this he dipped up to his eyes.

"Come out of there" asked Integra as she offered him her hand to pull him out knowing his limp.

To when she pulled him out to his waist she put her hand on his head and dipped him back into the fountain.

"Why are you naked?"

"It's comfortable"

Integra stifled a laugh that nearly slipped out as she shook her head.

_Dear God _she thought to herself as the young man seemed to content to swim through the water again in his little circuit.

"Does Seras know where you are? She should be in your room looking for you by now"

"Does who know?"

Integra's eyes widened behind her glasses

_Oh God no, please no._

"Seras Victoria, do you recognize that name?"

The young man considered the name coolly before answering

"Nope, don't know anyone by that name I think"

Integra's mind froze and she began to question him about Hellsing. He remembered bits and pieces about the place, where certain things were but not all. He remembered the gist of who Alucard was although it took him a minute or two to grasp the name. He knew she was his boss, although he couldn't remember why exactly or how she had come to be his boss in the first place or that he lived in Hellsing to start with.

He remembered her name because it was "long and funny" he said.

But he could not outright remember who Seras was as well as Walter and the rest of the Hellsing operatives. Integra wondered that the reason perhaps why the Draculina had been forgotten because she might have been the foremost thought in his mind when he received the wound and saved her that perhaps that might have had something to do with why he couldn't remember her? The real damage settled in not because of the blow but by being put out after being rescued. His mind was short circuiting so to speak and the freshest data was lost but more deep seated things were still there and most things he wasn't thinking about at the time were there too to a degree.

"Don't you remember her? She's tall about your height, she always wear white stockings and has big blue eyes"

"If you say so Frau Hellsing"

Integra feared for them both, she had grown fond of the pair and this relationship was something she did dearly hope would stay. But now, she wasn't so sure it would but not he couldn't remember. Seras had told her what Siegfried had said to her before passing out. The Draculina was very upset the more time passed and she wasn't so sure Seras would try to restart a relationship with him.

A beep from her small communicator brought her attention to her pocket from where she took it out and spoke.

"Hellsing"

"Sir Integra I can't fi-"

"Come outside to the fountain he's here"

"Outside? How did-"

"And Seras bring him a pair of his trousers"

"Trousers, why-? Ok, I'll be there in a second just don't move"

Integra continued to watch the young man swim and play with the fish who nibbled and worried at the dead skin on his wounds. His hands moved fluidly as did his fingers which he freely offered to the fish. She saw his expression and it was a curious thing, he was so enchanted with what he was doing. He was saturated in a sense of peace and satisfaction she couldn't describe. He was happy to be alive. All of the burdens he seemed to have been carrying had all but evaporated.

Integra looked back as she heard Seras' boots clipping on the hard gravel. The moon was shining brightly and there was little need for artificial lights.

"Where is he?" asked Seras as she dropped the trousers on the side of the fountain.

"Seras, there's something you should know before you speak with him. He can't-"

Before Integra could continue, Siegfried swam his little circuit and came behind the Draculina. He looked at her curiously for a moment before poking her back.

She turned and her face became relieved to see him, a second afterward it turned to curiosity about his being in the pond and why his eyes were lavender.

"Wie heissen Sie?" he asked assuming her hair, eye and skin color meant she was German.

"You know I don't speak German darling" she said as she glanced at Integra who looked like she was expecting something unpleasant.

"What's your name?" he asked brightly.

Seras' mind took a moment to absorb the query. She analyzed his expression and tone. He wasn't kidding, he meant the question.

"You-you don't know who I am?"

"Nein" he said as if there was no consequence to what he was saying, to his mind there was none, he didn't know this person although he did feel a tinge of familiarity with her, he couldn't describe it but he liked this person.

She couldn't internalize that he didn't know. Desperation grabbed at her senses until she stifled the feelings as she remembered the marriage proposal and handed him his pants which Integra followed up by telling him to dress himself. Looking away and pulling the Draculina away with her to walk towards Hellsing Manor she thought of how to explain this to her. Ignoring the stumbling steps of the young man as he pulled himself out of the fountain hesitantly as he looked at the fish they kept walking to the manor.

He struggled to put his pants on as he nonchalantly limped towards them. He breathed deeply and looked at the decorative fauna around them as if there was nothing wrong with the world.

Seras walked alongside Integra quietly.

"That brain injury of his affected his memory, he seems to remember why he left Germany, his family, his mother and who Alucard and I are" she began as she drank in every expression on Seras' face.

"But he doesn't remember the people who work at Hellsing, how he got here or why. But he guessed what he's supposed to do, his mission"

Seras' expression bordered on weeping, she looked as if she'd been insulted.

"But why doesn't he remember me? Are you sure he's not faking it?"

"Police girl use your wits; why would he fake this?"

Integra looked back at the limping Officer and noticed the scars on his knee where she had him operated to mend his old, old leg injuries and the ugly slash across the bridge of his nose and cheeks from his landing on the roof of a house in Havenbrook.

"Maybe he doesn't remember you because you were the foremost thing in his mind after he fell off the house when he saved you"

"I don't know"

"Well, what would you say is the reason?" she retorted.

Seras stopped walking as she looked back at him.

He spun happily on his left heel as he actively moved his injured leg about. Regardless if he remembered the origin of his injury or not the operation on his leg would give him full mobility. He looked like he was happy to explore how he could stand without a brace or cane despite pangs of pain here and there.

"Take him to his room, tomorrow we'll have to see what we are going to do with him" sighed Integra, despite the head injury he should still be able to use whatever supernatural talents he inherited from his mother.

It was in the blood after all.

Seras walked over to the young man who looked very interested in the moon and gently grasped his hand which he weakly shook wondering if it was a handshake. She tugged him to follow and he did so reluctantly. Integra saw in him that guarded mindset he had when he had first come to Hellsing. He didn't know this person and although he liked her, why should he trust?

The Draculina walked him over to his room and tightened her grip grudgingly when he didn't grasp her hand back or tried to wriggle it free.

"Was?" he asked her in German when she looked at him resentfully.

"Stop it right now!" she shouted at him when he pulled his hand away.

"Stop what?" he responded as he backed away from her, his liking of her being replaced by recoil.

"This!" she screamed at him as tears pooled around her eyes on their own.

She had considered leaving him, she felt so trapped like she was drowning because five little words. The idea of freedom now seemed tainted, she didn't want to marry him but for the love of God she didn't want to lose him either. And the more he pushed away the more the overwhelming feelings came hammering back. Confusion flashed across his countenance, Seras regretted it, all of it. All the doubt, all the hesitance and all the speculation which now seemed meaningless when compared to the actual breathing being they were tied to. This was the young man who told her he loved her. Her mind reasoned that he divulged as much as he did because he thought he was going to die.

He almost did

Wiping at her eyes the young man inched closer to her and put on hand on her arm and squeezed gently as he usually did with acquaintances. He took a step back when the Draculina embraced him and held on as tight as she could without hurting him. He looked at her confusedly.

"What's wrong?" he asked as his hands reluctantly returned the embrace of a stranger.

Seras leaned on him

She embraced him harder and her mind ran through all the little things she did with him. How could she make him remember?

"I love you" she soothed, more for herself than his recognition, as she gazed into his eyes.

She saw the reluctance in his expression.

"Ahhe Danke Schon?"

The Draculina looked as though she'd been staked through the heart. This was happening too fast, all of it. She just wanted things to go back the way they were.

She let go of him and held onto his hands gently.

"You don't remember but you and I were in love. In Havenbrook you received a head injury and you don't remember me"

"Ja, Integra kept mentioning you" he said, dearly wishing to back far away from this intense crazy stranger.

Swallowing the curt response "Integra kept mentioning you" she stopped. An idea materialized in her mind and she passed Siegfried into his room. He had always made the first move when they were getting to know one another, he had always made the push to come closer to her and he's the one who asked her to bite him. He sat down on his bed and she rubbed his bad knee carefully as she gave him a wide smile.

"So, tell me about yourself" she began as he had done almost a year ago.


	5. Chapter 5

In Hellsing Manor, where all the darkest information of occult magic was stored was kept in a gigantic vault in Alucard's chambers at the very back. Through the light mist and unnatural darkness, through a stone brick that was loose one could access it. However, set in subtle carvings in the floor, walls and ceiling before the door to the vault were circles and wards of power deep set that had been un-renewed for many, many centuries.

A magical barricade whose construction was little known as to how it came about and even less understood by those who knew about stood there waiting eternally for intruders.

No one had ever gotten far enough into Hellsing to know what would happen if one got to it but the Officer could perceive its power like a dense force of gravity just beyond his perception. He grimaced at the images that the carvings and circles of power conjured in his imagination.

Integra led him through and placed her hand not on the doorknob of the vault but on the center of the door itself.

"Sir Integra Fairbrook Windgates Hellsing" she said

The door opened noiselessly to a labyrinthine room composed of thousands upon thousands of shelves of books. The smell of close air and old paper was pungent as it was heavy. As if by some work of magic as many candles as there were books lit up the room.

Siegfried blinked at the chamber, he expected something dark and foreboding. This was simply ancient and welcoming. Without a word he followed Integra who by a well practiced route took him to what he imagine to be the center of the library. Carved into the floor was a pentagram which the young man suspected might be enchanted as well in some way.

"The Black Library" began Integra as she marveled at the centuries old room.

"This is the repertoire of all the occult knowledge the British Empire has accumulated throughout the ages. If the power of this place were to fall in the hands of our enemies and a single human being with the talent for magic…"

Glancing at him her eyes bore into his mind.

"This vault has not been opened in over one hundred and thirty seven years since the grand occultist Heinrich Burg came into the service of my great-grandfather. Herr Burg became greedy and his lust for power got the better of him. He died at the hands of Alucard"

The Occultist smiled innocently

"There seems to be a trend with German occultists helping the Hellsing family, Integra"

"That there is, though we've had one Frenchwoman and a Hungarian"

Integra noticed the simplicity in his countenance. He was not threatened or intimidated by Alucard or by her implied threat. Days and weeks passed since the day he awoke and went fountain swimming, Integra had had breakfast with him every morning since and had found he was still disconnected.

None of the things he could remember were tied with emotions.

None of the good things at Hellsing or the bad things nor many of his little neurosis or quirks, for example; before his head injury he would have died before calling her Integra. Now he did it freely, like a friend. Before he wouldn't really speak to anyone in Hellsing and now he engaged everyone. Before he was reliably moody and now he was always cheerful. The Master of Hellsing was not in a mind to correct him of his million little nuances but she felt it was best to observe the changes.

His animosity for his mother was still there though and so was his love of his sister.

"I assume your mother must have taught you how to read in the Old Languages yes? A conduit perhaps to pass on her skills to you?" she began as she gestured for him to sit down on the oddly pristine and shiny wooden table in the middle of the pentagram.

"Ja, Medieval German, Latin and the old runic English language"

"Good" she replied curtly

She gestured to the phalanx of books around them and said "Get to reading"

Seras trotted up behind the Officer and he glanced back at her with the same usual smile he had been accustomed to wearing if perhaps tinged a bit with the same mistrust he had for her as a stranger.

"Police girl will keep an eye on you" she said as she left the room.

Getting up from his chair Siegfried hung his cane around his forearm and began to walk about the library with an acute interest. Every row of books contained a world of power which he had been given access to.

The word for his enthusiasm towards acquiring new information wouldn't be excitement it would be lust, something that did not go unnoticed by the vampire which followed him closely. Reading over the lines on the individual books he noticed they had been carefully cataloged with individual words. Picking up the first book that caught his eyes he read the runes carefully and they roughly rounded to "Shadow" in ancient English.

Opening the book he began to absorb the words of power with methodical interest.

Siegfried was rediscovering himself, so to speak. Not as a person, but **what** he was.

The Seras looked at him confusedly.

At first he was adamant about using his powers if not outright disdainful and now he looked like he had been waiting for this his entire life.

Maybe

Deep down in his heart

He always had been

Hours passed and the young man had devoured page after page, streaming through the complex words and attempting to verbalize them. Re-reading a complex line of symbols a hundred times each, then moving on to another then re-reading it again a thousand times over. Once he began to read he could not stop and he branched out to different books. Cramming information into his mind, it did not take him a long while to begin trying to put it to practice in the privacy of the Vault. He did find a far wall of stone that was pock marked with chips and burned. It looked very well like it had been used for precisely what he was looking for.

Cracking his fists and taking a deep breath he felt power flow from his heart to his hands.

Violet electricity crackled around him and the smell of ozone became pungent the more he focused.

As he willed it to fire towards the wall it arced to the floor. An idea popped into his mind and he handled his cane and pointed it like a sword. Through his point of focus the power again arced out to the floor, but it was more accurate this time.

Correcting his trajectory through more than a few dozen failed attempts he eventually hit the patch of wall he wanted to hit.

Again and again and again the power arced to where he willed it.

Seras' confusion grew as time went by. How the young man knew how to use his power, it was not something he was rediscovering or learning. It was something he simply refrained from using, and his knowledge of the subject matter was not humble.

He was an occultist who knew what he was doing.

After mastering this he moved on to the next, willing himself to turn to shadow and meld with the few pockets of darkness in the well lit vault. He held his breath and stood still, unmoving like a shadow on the wall. He persisted, asking Seras to see if she could see him, continuing the attempts to the point the Draculina actually had to look in order to know he was there he was satisfied and moved on to the next spell.

Every spell came to him easily, naturally. Like an instinct. The simple secrets did not hold any trouble for him, when he began to span out they increased in difficulty but so did his lust and anticipation at unlocking them.

As the hours passed the Officer seemed to forget the Police Girl was there, leaning against the bookcases watching him. No matter how intently she looked at him he didn't feel the need to look up. Only when she cleared her throat did he look in her direction to register the noise before burying his face in a tome again.

Seras hadn't gotten much out of him the in the weeks after he awoke. Just his name, that he had a sister and that his favorite color was green. Whenever she tried to probe about what she already knew about his parents he would easily divert the questions or even make her question the information he had truthfully told her.

It was a sour taste in her mouth when she confirmed he was an excellent liar.

As she continued to try and build conversation with him she worried if perhaps having that brain injury had turned him away from her completely. He would not look at her and when he would his eyes would be fixated solely on hers and then he would look away as soon as they were done speaking. He would give her monosyllabic answers to most of her questions and often gave the impression he was very anxious to stop talking with her.

She took a deep breath and glanced at him again. A grin was working its way on his face as he stopped reading.

"Um, Frauline Victoria?"

"For the last time, call me Seras"

His smile became wider as he nodded. He looked at her for a long moment before continuing.

"We-we were in love ja?"

Seras' eyes widened and brightened as if she had just heard something beautiful.

"Yes! Why? Do you remember something?" she began as in a heartbeat she was at the side of the table, her hands nearly reaching out to embrace him.

Realizing what she was doing she backed off apologetically.

"I'm sorry if I came on too strong when I met you, I realize"

She stopped mid sentence to swallow the words carefully before divulging them.

"I realize it must have been rather shocking to have a strange girl tell you she loves you no?"

In her heart she writhed, he was **hers**, and she was not a strange girl she was **his** Draculina.

Siegfried's eyes soothed quietly behind his glasses as he tucked a stray strand of hair back and away from his eyes.

"You are just a little scary is all. I'm not used to getting this much attention" he said as he fingered the bump under his skin, a little alloy plate replaced the shattered patch of skull behind his head.

"What can I do to make you remember?" she whispered, more thinking aloud than a question directed at him.

Upon looking at him she saw the first tinge of pity she had seen from the new Siegfried.

"I don't know but-" he began until he dove into thought again. He looked like he was trying to pull a thought out of his mind very carefully before saying it.

"I know some pieces of things about this place, what I'm supposed to do and who Integra and Alucard are. I find myself trusting them, they are familiar to me in a way I can't describe" he began before his eyes settled, unmoving, upon hers.

"If you say that we were in love, I'll believe you and I'll trust you to be telling me the truth. But-"

His eyes narrowed as he looked into her deep blue eyes. He expected a predictable reaction; the intense stranger might cry or to fly into frustration. He swallowed hard and spoke.

"I don't love you"

Seras' eyes became warm, almost as if something pleasant was going through her mind.

She walked over to him carefully and brought herself to eye-level with him, her lips found their way next to his ears and he found himself frozen.

"You will" she whispered as her lips pressed themselves lightly onto his cheek and gave him a lingering kiss.

He couldn't move and breathed shallowly, his heart hammered in his chest.

As if struck by a Gorgon's gaze he was frozen, staring into the vampire's eyes.

"You left Germany because you murdered your mother, she was trying to finish a ritual. Your grandmother raised you and you thought of her as your real mum, you raised Odette like you were her-"

"SHUT UP!" he screamed at her as she was taken aback by his sudden outburst.

He shot up from his chair and backed away from her defensively.

"Who told you that?" he snarled

Seras' eyes became as steely as his. She was going to claim him if it took a thousand fights, she was not intimidated by his anger. She knew his tune.

"You did darling" she replied curtly as she followed his backing away.

"I did not!"

"Just look at yourself!" she screamed back at him.

He backed away only to turn on his heel and find himself face to face with the vampire who grabbed onto his arms and pushed him against a bookcase.

"You have memory damage" she snarled at him as he tried very hard to push himself into the bookcase.

"You like not having anyone know who you are because you are ashamed of what you did. You liked me not knowing anything about you because that would mean I'd think of you as just you and not a murderer. But guess what? You told me after I told you about my parents"

Her eyes wandered to his neck and she fingered the scars.

"You know who gave you those?" she asked as his eyes remained on hers.

"I did"

"You bit me?" he began in what looked to be a mounting feeling of violation.

"Yes, many, many times. Because **you** asked me to" she retorted.

His expression became disarmed as he stopped struggling against her.

Her eyes became glassy as she glared into his, the eyes of a familiar body with the mind of a stranger.

"I-I just want you back" she resigned

Standing against the bookcase, cornered by the vampire the German felt something stir in his heart again just as it had during the weeks that rolled by. He couldn't stifle it, he felt attracted to the vampire. The more she spoke, the more and more he liked her but he just couldn't allow himself to act upon those feelings.

"You're blushing" said Seras as she pulled his cheek in playful bullying.

Siegfried covered his face and slipped away from her. He couldn't help the great big smile he had on his face. It just wouldn't go away! He wasn't sure he liked it though.

He walked back to the table as he minded where Seras was. She looked at him with an expression he couldn't describe. It was a predatory look.

"Do you know why you are reacting the way you are?" she started with a knowing smile on her face.

"Why?"

"One time we were in the music room chatting you told me something that struck me as odd"

The Occultist looked at her like he was not sure if he'd like whatever the woman had to say.

"With Ellen and Stephanie, remember? Your other girlfriends?"

Silently gasping and suddenly feeling very tired he slumped into his chair. What more did this stranger know?

Not stranger

Seras

How much more did he tell her?

"You always did the chasing. But you never picked up on anyone who chased you" she said

He listened quietly as she began then continued.

"Love, you always did the chasing but you could never stomach the fact that someone might actually want you. You always felt you had to prove yourself because it was impossible that someone might just love you for being who you are"

Siegfried's mouth was slightly agape, he felt tears welling in his eyes. She was right, it's as if she had read his most private thoughts. Perhaps she had? Vampires did see things when they drank blood.

And drunk from him she had done.

Many, many times

"But I do. I love you" she began as she could see his armor fall of him.

"You love theater and musicals. I've caught you more than once trying to dance with your limp. You drink too much coffee and you have a dark sense of humor. You love Charlie Chaplin and you can't sing to save your life. Your favorite color is green. You love German food but hate English food"

"And"

She looked at him with an innocent reservation. "And you loved to kiss me" she breathed as she drew closer to him, leaning closer and closer to his face until she was a breath away.

He had always done as such, he would draw the kiss out. He liked it, to feel that she wanted the kiss so he'd leave the little span between their lips to her.

Seconds stretched out

His expression looked like he wanted it but his eyes looked conflicted.

It was all happening too fast. This girl knew him and he liked her, she was very charismatic and she was sweet to him. But it had only been a couple of weeks, why was he feeling this way? Why would she want to be with him anyway? She had been and he'd forgotten about her. But why did she want him at all anyway when she could just dump him and he'd be none the wiser?

As the seconds ticked by and he did not move, the Draculina drew back and sucked her lips in as if to recant the offer.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tried to force that on you"

With visible frustration and disappointment she stepped away and began to walk to one of the aisles.

Unmoving and frozen he watched her walk away.

Seras wiped at her eyes, she had no idea it would be this hard or disappointing from day one. She wondered how did the spouses of amnesiacs deal with this? It was unbearable.

To have your loved one there but with no memory of you or what things you've shared together.

It was impossible to try to reconnect everything, parts were lost and maybe, among those little pieces might be something important.

Something that gave the relationship life and without it, it would die.

Maybe him making the first move was part of that?

He was too distrustful maybe, to internalize that he was worth something, that he was not expendable as his mother had hammered into him, but he seemed unable to accept that. God help Ada if the two of them were to ever cross paths.

Bitch

Tears came as she visualized how agonizing it would be to only be his friend. To see him smile that special smile he reserved only for her and not be able to caress that face, to see him nap and not be able to snuggle up next to him, to hear that loud laugh of his that seemed so out of place with his appearance and be unable to squeeze his cheeks.

To look at those lips and be unable to kiss them

To look at that young man in the eyes and not be able to tell him that he belongs to her.

To not be able to call herself his

Or, God help her, watch him fall for another woman at some point.

Seras' heart hammered in her chest in agitation to the distressing thought.

She was pulled out of her thoughts as she felt to hands gently place themselves on her arms and turn her around. Her eyes were wide and curious, there was a silence between them that spanned even to their minds. His hands tentatively wandered to her back and he brought her chest to his as he embraced her fully but gently. After what seemed like an eternity and her old lover returning he pulled away. His hands wandered to her face, they traced her beauty marks and the subtle freckles shot across her face. Her face broke out in tears and her hands fell on his. She looked so relieved and overjoyed at what he was doing. He didn't understand why but this felt, right.

He was doing what he was supposed to be.

Even if he didn't understand why or how.

His mind shifted through all of his reasons and insecurities, his thoughts and doubts.

Gazing at her face he accepted it. She did know him and she was desperately trying to get him back.

Anyone who would do that for him had to love him.

Realizing this and internalizing it he lifted her chin and came closer. Seras opened her eyes warmly but these shot open as she saw his face an inch from hers and the warmth of his lips pressing onto hers.

What was a gentle kiss drew out for an age

The Draculina's legs turned to jelly and her heart thundered in her chest. As he pulled away she drew forward as her hands snapped around his waist and pulled him to her. As if breaking a damn of sexual tension as well as emotional tension his hands clawed her back and he pressed her hard against the bookcase. Her hands dug into his legs and pushed her waist into his as their tongues mingled.

He pushed away and withdrew as he took in the measure of her countenance.

Seras' visage was predatory as it was loving. Not taking no or in this case teasing for an answer she strode to him and clasped her hands on his arms and pushed him against a bookcase as he fell down.

Siegfried could see the expression in her eyes, there was lust there, there was also need.

Hunger too

Giving in to his impulses and instincts his hands clawed into her back as his lips drew to her neck. She moaned in her throat as he sucked deeply into her neck and his teeth bit into her in a pseudo vampiric kiss. Seras' eyes shot open as she continued to press into him and hold his head to her neck. She wondered if the biting was something he did with Ellen or Stephanie or if perhaps this was something he did only with her. Either way, it brought back memories of intimate moments when he still remembered her.

Her hands found a way up his shirt and they traced his chest, her right hand clamped onto his breast as she felt his strong beating heart thunder away. She scratched slowly across his chest as his hand wandered to her chest and he groped her, his other hand stroked her thigh then wandered to her buttocks. Her deep blue eyes flashed red for a moment and she domineered him into the bookcase, her nose shoving his chin aside so she could freely find his neck.

He pulled away for an instant as he realized what it was she was doing and so did she.

She shut her mouth trying to suppress the desire to bite, she closed her eyes and her body continued to grind into his as his hands continued to explore her body. The Draculina's eyes shot open as his hand clasped the back of her neck and brought her mouth to his neck.

"It's-it's ok, I want you to" he whispered into her ear as her lips drew back and her fangs punctured his skin before she even realized it.

His legs kicked and he yelped a short scream in pain.

After a moment he calmed and his arousal was gone, his hand stayed still as she stayed still. She wanted to suck and drink, it was a titanic imperative. She couldn't help it, but the need to know he was ok was more powerful. Her eyes caught a glimpse of his. She expected it to be just like that first night in the music room, closed but smoothed. But they weren't, those gorgeous lavender eyes were looking right at her.

He smiled, almost uninhibitedly so. A chuckle found its way out of his throat as he stroked her hair.

Her tongue dipped into the blood that pooled into her mouth and she drank.

She needed this

For a couple of minutes, she allowed herself to imagine that everything was fine. He remembered her and nothing would ever come between them. Leaving things as they were, his notes and selected tomes the Officer took his cane and walked out of the Vault, leaning heavily on Seras, the chamber on its own accord closed behind them both.

The young Draculina sifted through the fresh memories of what had just happened. Finally, after weeks of trying once and again he gave in to her advances, she was happy with herself she had to admit. In a very private corner of her mind where idealism and young romance didn't wander, it was a relief to have been able to get physical with him. It was a way to reaffirm and make concrete that he was hers and her his. Briefly she considered having sex with him but quickly the more rational part of her mind stifled the thought. That would certainly reaffirm what she was feeling but it was going too far. Not because it was not the right person but because if they did in fact sleep together, it would be impossible to turn him into a vampire.

Internally she coiled in thought wondering when and more importantly how she was going to bring this up in a conversation.

_"Oh, by the way! Can I kill you? No- I'd never hurt you its just I need to kill you in order to turn you into a vampire and well-I just thought it would be rather marvelous spending eternity together don't you agree?"_

Seras kicked herself internally, it **was** going to be a problem trying to bring that up. She wondered however, how selfish was it to want to turn him just because she didn't want to be alone? When she had first bled him she felt he would have agreed to it, but now and days afterward she wasn't as sure. He was a different person, for the better thank goodness but he was a different person altogether.

Withdrawing from her musing she spoke.

"Did I drink too much?" asked Seras as her eyes glowed blue in the dark.

The Occultist turned to her and a sappy but tired smile adorned his face.

"It's ok"

"Sorry"

"Don't apologize" he said as he kissed her on the cheek.

She turned his chin and kissed him on the lips.

He smiled again and his eyes narrowed at her.

"Does this mean we are a couple again?" he asked carefully

Seras' eyes widened in mock surprise

"Of course, I hope you weren't thinking that I let you grope me just so I could get to bite you and be quite finished"

He smiled weakly as he tripped down the step that led to Alucard's chamber proper.

"Of course, silly question" he said as he glanced at his watch

9:00pm

_My Girlfriend_

The words tasted strangely but he gave into it all in a careful way, like dipping into strange new waters. It all felt right and familiar, despite the fact he couldn't understand it and it was scary and unnatural in equal parts.

Not caring where he was being led to so long as he could keep his arm around the new and exciting Draculina he followed her, she led up to his room where she sat him down on his bed as she hunted for food in little niches she knew he had, but he didn't. His eyes wandered to the window and the outside. There was nothing beyond Hellsing, no world beyond the manor and no women beyond the one who was in his room right now. He smiled contently as his eyes shifted to the door. Without knocking Integra let herself in and walked up to the side of his bed.

"How did you find the Black Library?"

He smiled

"It was fascinating, I learned much and practiced"

Integra's countenance was severe but her eyes bespoke that she was pleased.

A smile broke across her face, something which he didn't expect

"So, did you prick your neck or did a vampire attack you?" she teased as a bit of anxiety crept on his face. Integra wondered what kind of masochism was required for a person to enjoy being bled by a vampire. Before as a mistrustful, neurotic and possible sociopath and now as a friendly, confident social butterfly he had the same inclinations. How odd.

"Don't mind Sir Integra, she knew about us and she approves"

Integra's eyes narrowed

"I do not approve of co-workers being involved with one another, but I allow it between you two"

"Thank you" whispered the Office as he tugged at her sleeve trying to coax her to sit on his bed.

She didn't

Seras handed him a glass of milk and cookies as she stifled a laugh.

"You look quite pale, I think bled you a little much"

Siegfried smiled sappily and he turned on the TV.

He searched to channel 55 the German National News Program, he read off the lines of information and smiled at the German newscasters. It soothed him before the head injury and it did afterward as well, there was something comforting in hearing his own native tongue spoken. It was quite obvious he missed his Fatherland.

"So, I assume you two are together again?" asked Integra as she glanced at him quietly.

Seras smiled widely, she had the look of a delighted little girl about her.

"I'll ease him into everything we used to do" she said, mentally planning things aloud.

Both of the women looked at the Officer when he gasped as if he'd been stabbed through the heart.

He dropped his empty glass on the floor, the plastic clacked against the floor and his hands shook uncontrollably.

"Love what's wrong?" began Seras as her eyes turned to fright when she saw the absolute terror in the Officer's stare.

On the television was the recording of a woman dressed in whites and blacks.

Her hair was long and black, her skin immaculate and perfect. Through her blouse and across her chest were thick, straight scars and across her neck a gouging, clumsy scar. Her eyes were piercing and imperious. Their color was lavender.

As the German newscaster's recorded voice repeated the message recorded earlier English subtitles shot across the screen.

_Frau Ada Junker appeared today after her son's brutal murder of his father Otto Weber eighteen months ago. Thus far there have been no reports or sightings of the young man but Frau Junker is optimistic her son will be captured._

Images of the Officer popped up on screen, images from before he had let his hair grow out or taken to wearing reading glasses.

He was a completely different person. His dark eyes seemed to radiate hate towards whatever unlucky photographer was told to take his family photo.

Next to the woman who possessed an otherworldly beauty was a little girl who had a boyish haircut, she shared an array of features with the mother and look quite terrified as she stood next to her.

The woman spoke about the tragic event and called for a manhunt to track her son down.

As she finished, her face contorted by emotions related to the horrid trauma she smiled straight at the camera and said;

_I have no doubt in my mind that my son will be tracked down and brought to justice for what he's done; the murder of my beloved husband, **his **father. And for his own attempt on my life._

Claps and cheers from supporting crowds erupted from around her during the interview. Her eyes ignored the praise and focused solely on the camera lens.

Her lavender eyes seemed to bore into television.

Both Integra and Seras looked slowly at the Occultist who was silently whimpering as both of his hands were clamped around his mouth and tears streamed down his face as his eyes locked onto the image on the television.

Muffled screams were stifled by his hands.

His eyes bored into his sister and then to his mother, then back at his sister and his terror intensified tenfold.

The woman put her arm around the little girl who's mouth contorted into a grimace of fear and smiled.

_I will do everything in my power to make sure that I do not lose my darling daughter Odette as my son meant to when he tried to destroy this family. I made the mistake of letting him influence her and I fear he might have harmed her in some way I've yet to discover._

Seras and Integra felt the aura of fear that exhumed from the young man as he heard the final words from the woman. It was a palpable, infectious terror.

_Make no mistake my child_

_Your sister will suffer the consequences of your monstrous actions for years to come. But no matter what you do or where you flee or wherever you hide;_

_We_

_Will_

_Find_

**_You_**


	6. Chapter 6

Sir Integra Hellsing seldom needed to raise her voice at anyone, for any reason. Her grave countenance and the weight of her personality alone were enough to give the most stubborn personality pause and the weak willed shivers.

She had never had to scream at anyone for any reason.

But she did now

"OFFICER WEBER! STOP AT ONCE!!!" she screamed at him, the masculine tinge in her voice apparent.

The young man stood at the threshold of Hellsing Manor's door, his eyes glued to the gates as his hands snapped and nervously cracked his knuckles.

"I-I have to go Integra, I have to save my sister"

As she caught up with the German who had thrown something of a terror tantrum, he grabbed his wallet in his room and made for the doors as to head to Germany with nothing else but sixteen Euros. His eyes were wild and his breathing erratic. He seemed to be on the verge of fainting.

Perhaps it had been a good thing the Police Girl had bitten him, he didn't seem to have a lot of steam left all of a sudden.

"I HAVE TO SAVE ODETTE!" he half screamed as if it would open the heavens and deliver her to him. Stumbling onto one leg and breathing deeply, Seras ran to his side and picked him up.

Integra looked as if she might have slapped him at that moment if he hadn't fallen. Lack of blood produced the same effect she was looking for however, she had his attention and he was calming down.

"Are you quite finished?"

The German boy continued to weep as his chest breathed deeply to nourish his oxygen strained body.

His eyes searched hers as she took a drag from her ever present French cigar.

"Please, please I need to save her"

"Why should I spend resources and jeopardize operatives allowing you to go get your sister. To go to a powerful occultist's house, an occultist you tried to **murder** and who will likely be looking to get back at you if not outright expecting you"

"Because that's my sister, I can't let her live with that monster!" he cried as the desperation grew in his face.

"Even if you do get there and back with the girl in tow, where will she live?"

"Here! With me!"

"You expect me to allow a child to live in an institution that dedicates itself to hunting the undead? Absolutely not" she said in as a matter of fact voice.

"Please, I will owe you my life" he pleaded as he fell to his knees.

"You already do, and if you didn't I would have had you killed"

"Please! I will work as hard as I can every day! I will learn every spell in the Black Library, I will never allow another operative in Hellsing to come to harm if I can help it! BITTE, HELFEN SIE MIR, UM MEINE SCHWESTER ZU HELFEN!!!!" he shrieked as he grabbed at her pants in humility.

Integra's cold eyes focused on the weeping young man, he was begging her. Literally humiliating himself before her asking for her help.

"Bitte Integra! I need you! Please help me" Siegfried cried quietly

Two hands came to his shoulders and the young Draculina looked up at Integra with pleading eyes.

"Please, let him do this. I'll go with him, I'll make sure nothing happens to either of them"

Lavender eyes locked onto the blues of the Master of Hellsing and they quieted as Integra sighed.

"Very well"

The young man smiled like he'd just been given the world.

"I'll have a chopper ready for you in an hour, go get your sister. However-"

The word hung like a threat

"When your sister comes here, **I** will decide if she may stay here or go to an orphanage. I've made enough concessions in your favor as is, I will not have a rowdy child running amok here"

Smiling like the sun the Occultist breathed in relief

"Odette is not rowdy at all"

"You set a poor example when you arrived here, you gave me enough headaches you problematic bastard" she sneered at him.

Not fazed at all by the comment to which he could not remember what she was referring to he rose to his feet wobbly.

"I expect only your best behavior from now on, you will work twice as hard as anyone here and you will **never** ask something like this of me again. Understood?" she uttered with an expression as if she was appraising a diamond that was covered in shit. There was something good in hand but she didn't like having to go through the effort of cleaning it off.

"Ja!" laughed the Officer in joy as his red face and eyes continued to settle.

"I will work until my hands bleed and when they do I will keep working, I swear it"

Integra nodded at him and walked away saying "That's what I like to hear. Do not disappoint me"

The Draculina smiled and pulled the young man to his feet.

She noticed the split expression on his face and could feel the palpable anxiety in his aura.

He was overjoyed he was going to go get his sister.

And he was mortified he was going to get his sister.

"Why are you so afraid of Ada?" she asked him, genuinely confused about the why. Why did he look like he was going to have a heart attack when he saw her on the TV? Why did he speak about her as if saying her name would summon her? Why was he so utterly terrified of his mother, despite being an occultist and despite being a murderess. His fear transcended that, what about her warranted terror?

He didn't answer her, his eyes conveyed everything she needed to know.

His eyes were the eyes of a knight about to be sent into the dragon's den with no hope of defeating it, only with a faint hope to steal from it.

And live to tell the tale.

At 2:39 am December 1st 1998 a shadowy figure emerged from the alleys in Freistrasse in Berlin, Germany.

The face was expressionless but the body was tensed like a spring.

Scanning the bright and inviting apartment complex the body smoothed into motion, its hands outstretched as if blind.

Fingers curled slightly as if tasting the air and atmosphere before them; looking for magic.

Rammstein played in the background in the lower floors of the bright building.

The figure saw Heinrich Gunsche emerge from the complex.

A neighbor who had been friendly but the young man never really cared to know. Speeding up the young man slipped around the pack of young adults who drank and shouted at one another. Not even bothering to cover his appearance; glasses and long hair, none of the young adults paid any heed to him. Even though all of them knew him, none of them recognized him. Some of the older girls whistled at him then jibed at him as he ignored them. At the back of the apartment complex were various couples in dark niches in the small park-like enclosure.

Some kissing

Others nonchalantly fucking

Barely noticing, the young man eyed the structure as he knew it. Every little ledge and every little foothold. Going around the opposite side he bumped into a couple that was fully screwing.

"Move" uttered the young man

"Fuck off!" moaned the girl before the Officer snapped his hand around the young man's neck and pulled him out of coitus and out the alley.

Before either of the young adults could protest or in the boy's case strike at the young man he snarled murder at them both. Two bright violet dots flashed out of his eyes as he looked at them. The couple quickly dressed themselves and half ran away. The two dots glowed away and the eyes they belonged to locked onto a small cement potting area that had a few half dead shrubs. The young man stepped onto them balancing himself expertly then jumped up and gripped the ledge that served as a snow breaker. Hoisting himself up he hugged the wall until he reached the window to a staircase and climbed up to the fifth floor. Snapping the door open to the hall proper he slipped in silently. The white tiles on the floor and yellowish lights above him were markedly average, there was nothing special about the building or it tenants. Walking casually down the hall past each door he eyed one of their number as if it might rear up to bite him at any moment.

_Zimmer 536_

The young man passed it and slipped out the window opposite to the hall end he came from, he hugged the wall as he passed again over the road and the crowd five stories below. He climbed onto a fan unit and tentatively latched onto the guardrail of a balcony and pulled himself up like a slithering serpent: controlled and silent. The young man trembled quietly as the reality of what he was about to do hit him, involuntarily his heart sped up and he began to sweat.

His hands reached out quietly to the glass door.

He felt nothing, no spell and no magic.

_Odette_ he thought

Like an incantation his heart stilled some and his mind focused. Fingers pulled on the door slowly, taking an age he opened the door into a familiar living room. It was immaculate and clean, lavish furniture and respectable works of art were set in perfect order. The young man breathed in and could catch smells that he had nigh forgotten about. Scents he wanted to forget about. He stepped through the room like a ghost, without uttering a sound and without any sudden movements. The darkness of the apartment cast a deadly shadow over everything. Every corner and every shadow seemed to crawl into a position to harm him.

Every photograph of the family was present, although all of his seemed to be deliberately missing.

His hand wandered to one of the little tables where clusters of pictures were cluttered. A picture of an old woman with blue sunglasses being flanked by and a young boy and a toddler at the forest, a picnic was laid out behind them and a man with a bright happy face made the peace sign at the photographer. Fingers snapped at the picture and flicked its holsters on the back of the frame. Slipping out of its prison it was inserted into a breast pocket with utmost care. Speeding up the figure pushed further into the house, his consciousness pushed through everything around him. Every familiar thing and every new thing added. His heart hammered in his chest and hostility followed, he could feel the aura of familiarity around him and he hated it. Down the hall where the rooms lay he stopped quietly and listened.

He heard an obnoxious snoring down the hall behind the white door.

A chill crawled up his spine as he remembered his days of tip-toeing around the house after one of her parties where she was completely hammered. His eyes wandered to a door that was flanked by another identical one to the side of the hall. One of them was slightly ajar and the room within was dark.

His room

Peering into it he saw it was bare, nothing of his remained. It was all just as well, there was nothing he wanted back. He put his hand on the other doorknob and opened it quietly, two little eyes peered at him suddenly very awake. Two pairs of eyes looked at one another and recognition flashed in both. Not a sound was uttered or made. The little eyes wandered out of bed and out from under a mound of pillows and stuffed animals arranged in a protective phalanx, they looked under the bed and grabbed a little backpack. The little eyes looked at the floor and slipped on two little shoes then ran into the waist of the body with the two big eyes.

She had been expecting him

He wondered for how long

Picking her up and wrapping her around his chest and waist the young man walked out of her room. Sparing another glance down the hall and hearing the snoring again a brief thought flashed through his mind.

A knife and a moment, with only that he could finish what he had failed to complete almost a year before. And this time he'd be sure to cut her bloody head off.

The two little eyes peered from being buried in his chest and he saw his idea mirrored in them.

His heart thundered in his chest and his eyes watered. He had to get her away from here to some place away from this poison. Slinking away from the hall and to the balcony he left the snoring well and alone. And unbeknownst to him, he left the rune of power under the rug directly behind the white door undisturbed.

The rune was for death

Jumping down to the cement shrubs he scooped and interlocked his hands under the little one's buttocks and cradled her as he walked out of the alley into another that led through Freistrasse's seedier area. Figures were leaning against walls and smoking. Some were chatting and others simply watching, all stared at the young man cradling the little girl to his chest. The violet dots glowed in his eyes, a silence befell the alleys that snuffed out all sound. No one dared speak or move. Thugs that would have naturally felt the inclination to mug couldn't move and held their breath. The figure slicked and slipped through alleys until he reached the main plaza which at this time of the night was deserted. A single black car was parked near the arc that led out of that part of Berlin. Walking up the car and setting the little body inside the young man took one last look behind him.

Nothing followed

Feeling the familiar sensation of perpetual stress where his mother was involved he got in the car and tapped a mean looking woman on the shoulder.

"Take us home Captain Pryce"

The woman nodded and started the car. It sped off quietly into the night and the minimal traffic that was still active in the wee hours of the night. Minutes later and ways off in a private airfield, two red lights from the tail of a helicopter ascended into the sky. On the side of the nose of the helicopter was a checkerboard shield of two colors.

Crimson and Black

On one of the squares it read

"_We are on a Mission from God"_

Hours passed as Seras looked nervously out one of the many windows in Hellsing.

Her eyes traced the sky for the helicopter, despite the fact she had already received confirmation that the mission had been a success and they would be arriving shortly she couldn't stand sitting down and waiting.

The anxiety had been bad enough during the night and more so that Integra had forbidden her from going with the Officer. This was something she would not dedicate more resources to than it needed nor more operatives than it needed.

Which was to say Siegfried, the ever dependable Captain Pryce and two more agents to guard the chopper. It was something they were expected to be able to handle and they did. Though the young man had been very argumentative about her going with him, he just wanted to have only his sister in mind and no others to worry about. But Seras wasn't so sure, maybe it was his hesitance of her seeing his past rearing its head again. Or maybe it was just because he didn't want her anywhere near Ada. It didn't matter really. Finally she could see the black dot on the overcast sky speeding towards them.

"Sir Integra!" she said as the Master of Hellsing gave her a nod and walked leisurely down to the main entrance to which Seras beat her to within seconds.

The helicopter blades quieted as did the motor outside and Seras waited impatiently for them to arrive. She felt Alucard materialize behind her and stand quietly in the background, the curiosity on his face was obvious. Integra arrived and sat down on the only chair in the grand entrance hall, it stood next to a small table with another chair. More ornamental than anything else, but the intent for its use for tea drinking was obvious.

Captain Pryce and the two agents walked in without the Officer or the target.

"Where is he?" asked Integra as her eyes appraised the moment.

"The little snot fell asleep, he woke her up to change her clothing and "make her presentable" she said before saluting and walking away to the dining room for breakfast.

The Master of Hellsing continued to sit quietly, patiently waiting for him to come. Out of the corner of her mind, Integra mused that if Siegfried didn't enter within the next thirty seconds the Draculina might explode. The poor thing was squirming impatiently in her spot amongst herself and Alucard.

After five minutes they could hear the door creak open and the Occultist's exasperated face popped in. He smiled and glanced back, he whispered something in German to someone behind him and opened the door in full.

"May I introduce to you Odette Alexandra Weber" he said as a little girl stood by him her eyes open and curious.

She curled her hand in what looked like a pushed back high five, a greeting reminiscent of her older brother's, and said;

"Guten Tag"

The girl had a boyish haircut and freckles strewn across her face like buckshot, her round little face as she smiled seemed to glow. Her little white dress and coal black school shoes gave her an awkward if adorable appearance. She approached the trio fearlessly but constantly glancing over her shoulder to be reassured that she was backed up by her brother.

Offering her dainty hand at Integra and smiling politely "Sir Hellsing?" she asked, her accent pronounced like her brother's.

"That's correct Miss" answered Integra as she shook the little hand quietly.

She didn't crack a smile

If only a little intimidated Odette looked over to the man in red who smiled widely at her in what she surmised might have been something akin to the Big Bad Wolf considering to eat Red Riding Hood.

"Umm, Herr Alucard?"

The No Life King nodded and shook her hand lingeringly as he seemed to consider a private joke only he was privy to. He smiled wickedly at the Officer, then again it might as well have been a warm smile laced with light mischief. But when it came to the No Life King, mischief could be fatal. Lastly, Odette looked over at a blonde woman who was about her brother's height with big blue eyes and was very pretty. She was covering her mouth gleefully as she watched the scene unfold. The little girl glanced back at her brother who was looking at the woman with a wide, pleased smile and she asked;

"Sie ist……?"

The older brother bent over and brought himself to eye level with her and he said brightly but quietly as if it was a secret;

"Das ist meine Draculina"

Seras made a sound akin to a squeak and everyone looked at her. Suddenly very red she shook the little German girl's hand and looked at the Officer like she very dearly wanted to touch him. Odette stepped out of the way as the older brother guided her by. She glanced at the blonde woman as she stepped over and kissed her brother on the lips. The little girl looked at the act with interest until the scary woman spoke up.

"Officer Weber, I'd like a moment to speak with Miss Weber alone" she said as she strode over to the trio and with a stare drew the little girl away from her brother.

He looked worried but nodded her to go with the woman and the little girl did so. The pair of her brother and the blonde woman looked after her as she was led by Sir Hellsing to what they imagined might be her office. The little girl's shoes went "clop, clop, clop" as she followed after the woman tentatively.

Seconds after they were gone the Occultist looked at the door they had left through.

Seras felt a swelling of pride and affection in her heart as she witnessed the first interaction between the young man and his kid sister. He wasn't kidding at all when he said he had raised her. He behaved like a parent and she like his child, and what more it seemed to fall so naturally to him. It was kind of amazing really.

"Did you run into any trouble?" asked Seras as her hand interlocked with his and her eyes gently searched his.

The lavender eyes narrowed in thought.

"Nein, thank God. I'm going to go watch the news, maybe Ada's reported the kidnapping by now" he said as he glanced at his watch.

8:35 am on a Saturday

No, Ada wasn't going to be up for at least another four hours.

Damn it

He was still anxious, he couldn't shake the sensation.

"Your sister is beautiful" said Seras as warmth emanated from her gaze.

Siegfried smiled as she pulled his cheek

"Just like her older brother"

"Did you used to bully me this much before my injury?"

"Nope"

"Oh, so you were hesitant to bully a cripple but not someone with brain damage? You, Fräulein, are a monster"

Seras gave him a big kiss on the cheek as she shoved him away playfully.

"Don't give me that, you teased me enough when you were a "cripple". Though I think that the brain injury might have made you a little retarded"

The Officer blew a raspberry loudly at her which she pointed at and said "See, you **are** retarded".

He jabbed her in the side and she returned it

"You are so mean" he said as he squeezed her arm affectionately.

"That's your doing" she answered curtly as she eyed him mischievously.

Both walked away to the music room to wait for Integra to make her decision.

Odette was out of danger, but the taint of anxiety never left the Officer.

Something was wrong but he couldn't put his finger on it exactly.

Then again where his mother was involved there was always some looming threat circling over his head.

Casting the thoughts from his mind he tripped up Seras and ran away from her as she chased him in turn.

Seras snatched at his hand as she drew him closer to her, she smiled at him and said "I love you".

Her eyes were careful, she had never said this to him before in the context of a relationship but then again, she had told him many times in the weeks he knew her.

Siegfried smiled at her and replied "I love you too"

As she hugged his arm and blushingly snuggled into him, she seemed to glow. The Occultist wrapped his arm around her and hummed happily, although in his mind he was not at ease.

There were feelings swirling in his heart but he couldn't discern them. He loved this girl, she was simply amazing and he was humbled for the way she wanted him back even if she didn't remember her. But at the same time, would it last? Was it worth it? Was it genuine? He knew they were both a couple before his injury but, the feelings he had now were addled. He felt something bordering just beyond his perception of feeling and thoughts that his mind that wasn't sure if he had imagined them or if they were real, swam through his mind. The feelings and memories were just beyond his grasp, this girl was wonderful and she was there for him, but he simply couldn't grasp the smoke in his mind.

She genuinely loved him and he genuinely didn't want to break her heart. He had to make himself love her and he had to make himself remember, although the feelings and memories wouldn't come he knew they were missing. He knew they were there.

He needed to fall in love with Seras Victoria.

Well, for the second first time.


	7. Chapter 7

Led through the grim but bright halls of Hellsing, the cogs in Integra's mind clicked as she considered the variables of the child that followed her to her Office.

Clop, clop, clop

"Frau Hellsing?"

The woman looked back at the little girl who's eyes wandered everywhere rapidly as she assimilated everything about her new environment.

Dark little eyes settled on Integra's blue ones with a spark of intelligence.

"What did you do to my brother?" said the little girl as if she had rehearsed the sentence.

Integra's eyebrows rose in curiosity

"What do you mean?"

"He is happy"

"Is that a problem?"

"Nein! Not at all, its just-"

Odette seemed to double take at the words themselves before speaking them.

Clop, clop, clop

"He-I've, I've never seen him happy in his life"

Integra smiled internally

"Tell me Miss Weber, do you like hot chocolate?"

Odette looked at the woman carefully and with mistrust characteristic of her older brother.

"Ja?"

"Thought so, how would you feel about having some?"

The little girl nodded and eased in her tension as Integra's hand rested on her shoulder and guided her to the kitchen.

"Tell me about yourself Miss-"

"Call me Odette"

Integra smiled openly now, there was something charismatic about the child. That and she had an air about her that alluded to the best of her brother which in and of itself was endearing, as far as she had seen. She just hoped Odette had none of the man's mischief.

"Of course, and you can call me Integra"

The little girl smiled at her like a puppy getting who was being praised by a new and exciting person.

"Integra"

"Yes?"

"You remind me of Ada"

Clop, clop, clop

Sir Hellsing wasn't sure she would like what the youngster meant by that comment but she inquired further.

"How so?"

"Well, you are both really scary"

Integra's countenance hardened again as she led the kid through the halls. She wasn't sure she liked being perceived as frightening by a small child.

"Why don't you call Ada your mother?"

"Because she's not" answered the little German girl without thinking.

"What do you mean? Aren't you siblings with-"

Odette seemed to backpedal as her eyes became nervous to correct what she had said.

"She's not my mom because she didn't raise me, she doesn't deserve to be called mom. Brother doesn't call her mom to her face either. She really doesn't like that"

The thought crawled up Integra's spine that the child had just stumbled over a secret. She had none of her older sibling's elegance when it came to deceit, no doubt he picked it up from his mother. How good was he at it really?

What more was there to learn from Siegfried Alexander Weber?

Seras followed Siegfried to her room as she let himself tumble into his bed quietly. She could see the hesitance in his eyes, he was still a little unsure of where he could tread or what he could do with her. He was still a bit of a stranger despite his affection but he was getting there she felt. That moment in the Black Library felt like old times. The kissing, the grinding, the breathing, tugging, squeezing, groping, the looks in their eyes and the smiles that were flashed all felt so familiar.

The Draculina thought perhaps that the best thing she could do is try to get him comfortable with her. Ease him into the little things they used to do; such as snuggling in bed and listening to old music.

He liked the Blues when they did such things.

Siegfried drew the blinds to his windows producing a nice shade in the room, he sifted through his piles of books for nothing in particular.

He looked over to the bed and the woman sprawled on it, her big blue eyes gazed at him in an expression he couldn't describe.

His heart fluttered again.

_Himmel_ he thought, was it supposed to feel this hard? Was every time she looked at him like that supposed to make him so anxious? He mused that it was perhaps the fact she felt something so intensely for him that intimidated him. Sometimes he felt nothing and other times he didn't want anything other than to kiss the hell out of her. That moment in the library was beginning to sink in. Siegfried wanted to let himself love her, but there was just something around the act he just couldn't let himself. What if she didn't really love him? What if she rejected him?

Clenching his hands as if to strangle the thoughts themselves he marched over to his bed purposefully and jumped on the Draculina playfully as he tickled her neck or sides.

Dominating her he grabbed hold of her face gently and kissed her lovingly. It felt two parts natural and one part exciting and new.

He laid himself on her as his eyes took in every detail of her face with scrutiny.

"I, Love, You" he said looking straight into her eyes. Although his expression was adoring, she could feel the intensity in his eyes.

She wondered if he was saying this because he meant it or because he was trying to make himself feel it.

Both she decided.

It didn't matter, she could feel the warmth in his gaze. She sighed carefully as she toyed with the hair on the back of his head. "Why do you love me?" she asked as her eyes appraised his forehead and his nose.

Without missing a beat he answered.

"Because I forgot about you. You could have left me but you chose to try to make me remember when I'd be none the wiser if you didn't"

_Good answer_ thought the Draculina

He lay on top of her for the longest while, not in the least interested in seeking to escalate the physical contact. He simply looked at her and stroked her face or hair whispering sweet nothings to her in German. Or occasionally asking himself what in the world he was going to do with her. Or very quietly, as if saying it out loud would allow her to understand, he whispered "Du bist gemein".

"I'm going to take a shower" said the Draculina as she slipped out from under him after they had lost track of time and went to his drawers picking out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

"Are those yours?" asked Siegfried with an incredulous smile on his face.

"No, these PJ's are though"

"What are they doing there?" he replied coming to her side looking at the little nook of clothing belonging to Seras.

"Sir Integra doesn't want us sleeping in the same room…… but occasionally I'd pay you a visit"

The Occultist's eyes widened

"To have sex?"

Seras' tone changed from confident adult to defensive teenager.

"NO!"

Realizing how loudly she said it she lowered her voice.

"No, you were kind of a gentleman. You never pushed anything and you hardly ever groped me when we are messing around" she said smiling mischievously but warmly.

The German boy was very, very red as he looked away.

She nudged him with her elbow as she stood up and walked to his shower.

"Not that I don't like it" she said as she shut the door.

The young man looked very hard at the door after she had closed it and the sound of a showerhead filled his room.

There was no word for what she was. She was amazing in so many ways, she had been so sweet to him, so warm, so blunt and teasing, so mean and understanding.

It had been something of an adventure getting to know her.

Again, he realized.

He thought of Seras, her amazing scent and her heavenly laughter and a voice that just he just couldn't help but smile at. Her big blue eyes and her lovely skin, her soft hair and…

He purged the thought from his mind, he was adamant about fantasizing about the Draculina. He did want her but it still felt a little weird. Fantasizing about a woman for whom he did not quite fully understand his feelings for was inappropriate.

It was very hard not to think about it though. He had had a few naughty thoughts here and there.

Getting up and pacing about his room he glanced at the books on his shelves. He went through them little by little as days went by, most were fiction books he ordered with his small paycheck.

As his eyes traced one line he spied a book that was coal black.

With white lettering was the word: _Draculina_

It was a small book sandwiched between two large ones, he was surprised he missed it.

He pulled the book out and it was closed shut with a little leather strap that had been carefully sewn into it. Opening the book his eyes narrowed in thought.

There were pictures of the Hellsing Manor in the book from different, flattering angles. Pictures of the grounds and the fountain and the halls and his room adorned the first two pages.

Beyond that were pictures of Seras

Most of the pictures were at night

She was smiling in all of them, pictures of her in normal clothing or just lounging in the grassy hills around the manor looking at the moon.

The young man's heart stopped when he saw the single picture in which she was not alone.

It was a picture of them both sitting closely on a small swing somewhere outside of Hellsing at night.

They weren't touching or kissing or anything that would indicate they were a couple.

But from their eyes, the way he and she were smiling and the way Seras and he leaned next to one another to fit in the picture.

Something clicked in his mind.

He choked and felt his something as thoughts began to pop into his mind.

The names Todd and Mary

The date December 19th

The color Orange

Breathing deeply the young man sat heavily on his bed. His mind swam as he felt something in his conscious drop: like a cup being filled.

He glanced at Seras as she walked out of the shower drying her hair. Her shorts showed off her long sinewy legs and his shirt didn't fit her correctly, her cleavage brought up the end of his shirt just over her belly button.

She smiled lightly as she looked at herself in the mirror, the same thought always popped into her mind that vampires weren't supposed to have reflections.

Ludicrous

"Is your favorite color orange?" asked Siegfried as he rubbed at his airy feeling head.

Seras stopped drying her hair

"Were you born on December 19th to a Todd and Mary?"

Her big blue eyes seemed like disks as wide as they were open now. She turned slowly as his expression was blank but careful as he seemed to try and tear thoughts out of his mind.

"You-you had a cat when you were a child……it ran away? A black tabby? Or was it a dog? No-no it was a tabby, I think"

They stared at one another for the longest time, long after the Occultist's countenance had settled and he simply looked at the Draculina. As hard as he strained nothing would come, but Seras felt more natural to him now. Seras walked to him slowly as he turned the scrapbook towards her and his finger rested on their picture.

"So that's what you were doing with my pictures" she said quietly as she looked at Siegfried.

"Why is there only one picture of you and I?" he asked, his lavender eyes curious.

The young girl looked at him sadly

"You insisted on never being photographed"

"Why?"

Seras looked at him tentatively

"You always said you looked just like your mum"

The eyes of the Officer soothed and narrowed, the face of his mother flashed through his mind as he looked at her. He had done so much to avoid her in every way, he even changed his eye color from the cooing lavender to the pitch dark brown of his father. Seras had given him a sad look when he told her that.

"Where is my camera?"

"By your bed in the night table"

Siegfried reached over and took out the bulky little camera and walked to Seras.

He slung his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek and pushed the button.

As the camera's light blinked as it was ready to immortalize another image she turned his chin to her and kissed him.

Another flash washed over the room for a heartbeat.

Seras smiled at him and he at her, her hands traced his neck carefully where she had bitten him. Siegfried's eyes watered.

"I know you" he sighed wistfully as the same uninhibited smile split his face.

Without a word they both ended up on the floor on the other side of his bed as Seras embraced him over the edge of his bed. They both laughed lightly as they half-held and half poked and teased at one another. Seras looked at him coyly as he squeezed her sides and she pushed him away with her knees. Between the playing he ended up slipping between her legs and grabbing her wrists. Controlling her playful struggle he pushed her wrists down and kissed her neck. When Siegfried looked at her he saw an expression he couldn't describe but had seen before with other women.

No longer struggling she let him between her legs in earnest and as the seconds ticked by curled them over his waist. He leaned down and kissed her stomach as his hands stroked her sides lingeringly exploring every little line and bump of her body hidden under his shirt. With the look of a child discovering something new and unexpected, and perhaps just a tad scary her eyes locked on his as he began to pull up her shirt.

He did so slowly, gauging her expression and her reactions. She said nothing and her eyes told him it was ok.

The base of his shirt slid over her abdomen under her neck. He gazed at her chest quietly as his eyes alternated between it and her expression. His heart fluttered as her hand took hold of his gently and brought it to her breast.

He stroked and rubbed it gently, giving the odd squeeze as he drank in every expression she made, including her smile. His waist pressed down into hers firmly but gently which produced a little groan from her which was coupled with a smile. Her hands traced his neck and his face then spanned out to grip and stroke his lithe but fibrous arms. Afterwards they explored his back and his chest.

The Officer's waist continued to push itself into hers rhythmically and she began to lose herself in the sensations it produced and the utter relaxation she felt throughout her body despite her heart thundering away. Her eyes opened in delight as he leaned down to kiss her naked chest until they heard the knob on his door slide.

Pulling the shirt over her chest and he getting off her, neither rose over the side of the bed in the second it took Integra and the child to enter the room.

"Officer Weber?"

He gave Seras a clenched look.

Sitting his arms and head over the side of his bed and producing a squeaky "Ja?" he smiled at them both.

"What were you doing?" asked Integra only to shut her eyes in pseudo annoyance when Seras imitated his posture and produced a bright, sing song "Hello".

"Your sister may stay, unlike her older brother she's not much in the way of a barbarian"

Coming to his sister's side to pick her up and embrace her he smiled widely at Integra. Odette waved away once smiling to Integra as she ran to her older sibling. Through the flurry of excited German speech Integra exited his room and started down the hall. She stopped as she heard Siegfried catch up to her in three long strides.

"Sir Integra?" he began carefully, finally using a modicum of proper respect.

"Yes? What is it?"

He deliberately put one hand gently on her shoulder, similar to how one would approach a bird of prey, and embraced her.

"Just-thank you so much" he said quietly as he hugged the Master of Hellsing in full.

Integra's eyes bespoke annoyance although a slight smirk came upon her face.

"Get off me Siegfried, this is very inappropriate"

"Jawohl" he answered as he bowed slightly and turned to his room.

Integra smiled at the door and sighed. She did like the boy and the Police girl and his younger sibling.. However clueless the Police Girl was also an endearing character, the Occultist however was something of an acquired taste. He did have a special brand of charisma though, she had to admit. It had been intriguing to watch how he changed as time went by, how his desire for Seras suppressed the worst of him and brought out the best.

Smiling vaguely Integra mused at the couple she was so fond of.

_They both have trust and abandonment anxieties but they are both very loyal as partners. That's why they like each other so much._

The pair and now the child exhumed a sense of lightness that was needed in Hellsing, it was healthy to see something beautiful when one's role in life was to hunt monsters.

Though Integra had to wonder: When did Hellsing turn into an orphanage? Or as she had just seen, a boarding school for horny young adults.

_God give me patience_

Odette looked at Seras intently as the English woman fuzzed with her shirt as if showing off her belly button was sacrilege.

"What were you two doing behind the bed?" asked Odette at her older brother as he came to their side.

Seras and the Officer looked at one another surprised.

They began to laugh.

"I was tickling her, she is awfully ticklish" he said quietly as his unusual pseudo parental confidence began to wrap around him.

His eyes smoothed and a knowing smile adorned his face.

Odette walked up to him fearlessly and put as much effort as she could into her hand as she slapped him across the face.

Seras looked at the exchange quietly, she had no idea how to react.

The little German girl looked like she wanted to cry in anger.

"I'm sorry I left you behind, I thought Ada was gone forever and you'd be safe with grandma and grandpa"

The little girl crossed her arms

"You should have taken me with you"

"No I could not have"

"Why?" she yelled at him, in indignant anger.

"Because I was bumming around for three weeks performing card tricks until I tried reading a fortune for Integra and she took notice of how the way I was moving my cards was impossible"

He looked over to Seras and said

"Then she chased me down and brought me here"

His eyes looked back at the little girl

"I deserved that, but I only wanted what was best for you Odette. You know I love you. I just didn't want you to live with me after I tried to kill Ada, that's all"

The little girl's eyes narrowed but didn't diminish in anger as she jumped on his bed and laid down quietly, pouting. Siegfried's hand slid across his fluffy bed spread towards the girl as she stared fixatedly at the wall, determined to ignore him. A smile fought its way to her face as his hand carefully reached her side and began prodding her ticklish points.

"Nein!" yelled the little girl in protest as she began to giggle and the older sibling grabbed her and began showering her in kisses.

Wriggling out from under her she jumped onto his back and snatched at his neck trying to get at his sensitive spots and he yelped in play defeat as she got to his neck in full despite his playful efforts to prevent it.

Seras watched the scene from the edge of the bed with a mix of hesitance, fondness and a desire to join in. There was just something about the couple that she wanted to be there with them. She wanted to have a part in it.

The Draculina was surprised when the little German girl held her brother's neck back exposing his chest. The look in her eye was inviting her to join in.

"Get him!" she laughed as she continued to fuzz with her older sibling's neck.

Seras' hands found their way into the young man's sides and neck where he protested and fought her for real.

"Das ist nicht fair!" he giggled as two pairs of hands looked to tickle him.

The German boy curled up into a ball and the German girl tried to pry his arms apart to no avail without Seras' help who with little real effort pried him out of his defensive posture.

But as she did so the little German girl reached over playfully to poke at her neck which produced a little yelp from the Draculina who in turn smiled mischievously at the girl.

Seras felt her chest clench when she saw the child recoil when her eyes wandered to her fangs.

The playing ended there.

Siegfried smiled delicately at his younger sister, his knowing smile returning. His hand rubbed Seras' knee as he sat up.

"Odette, this is Seras Victoria, remember what I told you about her?"

The little German girl looked at Seras now with scrutiny.

"Ja, sie ist ein vampire"

The Occultist smiled at her as he stroked her head

"There's nothing to be afraid of with Seras. I promise, you can trust her"

The Draculina smiled the sweetest non-tooth-bearing smile she could muster trying to keep the offending teeth from being seen.

Odette's hand reached out tentatively to Seras' face and her thumb traced her lips carefully. The Draculina smiled to reveal her staple as a vampire in full.

Scrutinizing the fangs and her brother's neck she asked "Why do you bite my brother?"

Seras suddenly felt very red and at a loss as to what to say.

"Seras needs to drink blood every so often, so I let her drink from me"

Odette looked at him quizzically

"Why?"

"I'm in love with her" he said gently as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He felt something coming back. The little girl's eyes brightened and she looked at Seras as if she was an angel. Warming up to the Draculina she sat closer to her taking in every little detail of her face. The older girl couldn't help but smile, she liked this little girl so much!

In the darkness of the labyrinthine corridors under Hellsing sat Alucard, bored out of his mind. His conscious flowed between thoughts that had nothing to do with one another; incoherent and awkward.

As he pictured their faces, Siegfried's and Odette's, the way he guided her and the way she looked at him. A wry little thought crawled into his mind and he smiled.

_My, hiding little secrets are you Siegfried?_

The No Life King's mind wandered to the seals on his hands and how much he hated Integra. Tormenting her and causing mischief had lost its appeal as of late, she seldom indulged his baiting anymore and the phalanx of family secrets he had about the Hellsing family were not of use at the moment. Saying anything would only piss her off, and what he wanted to do is destroy her.

And to his vast disappointment, Police Girl had not provided the companionship he sought unfortunately. He was bitter about it. As time passed he realized that whatever he thought he saw in her was not there after all. She did look so very much like Mina. His eyes wandered to her picture on his small table. He yearned for her to be at his side again. She who would be his constant companion throughout the years and all his joyless existence, someone he could speak to, mold to his image as he had begun to do to Mina all those years ago, someone he could indulge his carnal desires as rare as they were. He smiled. Someone he could make beg for him to indulge his desires. And with Seras Victoria he could not, she was just too resistant the drives of her darker nature and to his advances of which he had made many (all of them gentle in nature), earning her distaste. It had been frustrating that however much he left his offers to her on the table: insinuations to be his, offering his blood as a treat among other things. She would not take him up on the offers and it was all Siegfried's doing. So much more vulnerable the girl would have been had she been alone and without the German.

Grudgingly he grimaced in the dark.

Although he was her master and she was grateful for his rescue of her, the more she saw of him and his nature the less she liked him, just like Mina. It had crossed her mind to break her, he could torment her and force her into submission both physically and mentally but that tasted of shit in his mouth. Every time he neared her with the intent to be cruel to her, to take her physically or to possess her in some way he always saw **her** face. Mina's. And he simply could not, every dark intent was replaced with artificial kindness or indifference.

After several months he lost interest in her and merely guided her when she needed it, albeit unbidden.

In a word, he was dejected.

Siegfried had given him a slight change of pace, he was supremely hateful when he arrived in Hellsing. He constantly courted Integra's anger to provoke her into killing him, not only that but he had also challenged Alucard several times to see if he would budge in ending him. But it had been so much more entertaining to bait his temper instead, to tease and burrow into his mind and tug at his insecurities and neurosis. The fact he was genuinely unafraid of either of them was refreshing if a little tiresome at times.

Oh, how fun it had been to tease him about Police Girl as well, but it was aggravating to try to torment someone who had ammunition, deep ammunition against oneself.

_Why do you even try to be kind to Police Girl, Siegfried? She hates you._

**_Fuck you_**

_My, what language. Let me save you the trouble and assure you that all your efforts are in vain. She does not trust you, she does not like you and she will never call herself yours. You are pathetic! Yearning after a woman who will never want you._

**_I'll leave that up to her to decide. And I am not pathetic._**

_Yes you are. There is no deciding left to be made, you've been a bastard to her from the day you set foot here and now you think that just by being kind she'll come around?_

**_She might_**

_She won't, face it Weber you are going to die alone._

**_At the very least I will have the release of death. You on the other hand will be stuck here in this limbo, long serving a family you despise while everything that you might develop a semblance of care for passes away. Mina died long ago and- YES, I know about Mina you monster- you will never see her again. Not in the now and most certainly not in the afterlife._**

_"Touche, young man"_

Tormenting him had been a joy throughout those first few weeks. He was disappointed when the Officer began to become desensitized to his baiting and he became friendly (if only because Alucard did "create" Seras something for which he was grateful, and the desire to have her like him began to change his behavior) of all things. It was such in the nature of humans to constantly morph and transform, Integra began to treat him with carefully measured civility and Walter had been asked to provide him with niceties here and there in order to secure some form of loyalty or obedience at which they were successful but only because he accepted it. There really was no pulling the wool over the young man's eyes was there?

_"Here you are Mr. Weber, your new accommodations"_

_"Wow, my very own room. Why thank you Walter, this is a much welcome change from the dungeon"_

_"Yes well, Sir Hellsing's orders"_

The young German smiled wickedly

_"You know, you guys keep being nice to me and I'm going to develop Stockholm Syndrome"_

Alucard opened his eyes, two crimson ghost lights in the darkness as he felt something, a presence, encroaching on his chamber.

"Whomever you are, I have am not in a mood to be toyed with. Show yourself" he declared as he drew his obscenely long and powerful hand cannon "The Jackal" from his coat.

The fog in his room seemed to shift with unnatural force into a vaguely humanoid shape. A cloaked form made of mist stood before him with two glowing lavender lights. A voice like poison slipped into existence as the glowing eyes locked onto the vampire.

"I am not looking to toy with you Ancient" said the ethereal figure.

"Then who are you? What do you want-" began Alucard before the voice broke like thunder in the confines of his chambers.

"SILENCE!"

The eyes of the figure narrowed like knives as its voice settled again.

"So long as you are just sitting here, in the dark with nothing to do, pay attention" uttered the voice laced with arrogance and malice.

"I can sense great power in this place, I want to possess it" began the figure as the Ancient's mind settled on the apparition. His first instinct would have been to destroy it for its impudence but there was something about the voice that told him that there was something good to be had.

"The time will come when I pay this place a visit and I want to ensure that you do not interfere"

"What makes you think that I'd withdraw? I am obliged to protect my Master against any threat"

The eyes bespoke a morbid glee

"But what if you were unable to? But more so, unwilling to because you would be set free when she dies" whispered the apparition.

Silence stretched on between them

"I will leave you to consider this" sighed the voice as the ghost figure dematerialized into the mist around the room.

Alucard's consciousness awoke as he looked into his chambers. He had been dreaming.

He smiled-a wicked smile cut in the darkness of the room, what an opportunity had just landed on his lap. He was squealing with joy and excitement at the possibilities of what this apparition had just said, whomever it was. Was freedom suddenly within reach?

His cackling laughter echoed off the walls of his chambers and the labyrinth as the cogs in his mind began to click into place.


	8. Chapter 8

Days passed in Hellsing Manor and life took a brighter tone, there was something about the duo of Siegfried and Odette that cast a kinder light upon Hellsing. The atmosphere was less grave with a child about. As the pair settled into their routine Siegfried found he had to supervise Odette only minimally despite the huge adjustment from their little flat in Berlin to the expansive Hellsing Manor. She would help clean and keep after their room without his instruction and understood that she needed to entertain herself during the daylight hours as night time was when her beloved older brother and Seras worked.

So, she did the next logical thing as to not become a burden: pester Integra for work.

Imagine! She was a guest in someone else's home. Surely there was something she could do to pull her weight.

The little eight year old felt a tinge of shame as she followed Walter about on his doings about the estate. She really liked the elderly butler but she felt useless. Following him about like a puppy, carrying files for him or acting like a courier for things he needed brought to him seemed superfluous. Frustrated she would pick out messes (of which there were very few) to clean. Odette would haunt the firing ranges after they were empty to pick up spent shells and whatever little debris from the targets she found.

More than once the Hellsing guards had wondered who was it that arranged the spent shells in meticulously perfect order on the tables where the munitions were. They concluded that it was someone with a lot of time on their hands and a deadly boredom.

In the afternoons as she waited for big brother to wake up she often played the piano and messed around with the violin in the music room. Once Integra was passing by and she asked Odette to play her a song. She tried with the violin and with the piano.

After a musical note like the moan of a dying cat Integra suggested she stick with the piano.

Odette's days were filled with tedium until the sun set upon the horizon, despite the odd conversation with Integra here and there. Reliably she could let herself into Siegfried's room and she could bet she was doing so just as he was getting up from bed. Then, things got a lot more interesting! She would have her dinner (his breakfast) with him in the dining hall where Seras would sit very close to him but away from where the smell of the dish was wafting to. Afterwards, Siegfried would always go down to the dungeons and into a room that opened on its own it led to the biggest library she had ever seen in her life.

The Black Library, he called it.

There he would practice many spells and fiddle with artifacts stored in rows upon rows of shelves. He would read to her from the journals of a man named Van Hellsing about Herr Alucard. The more he went on, the more Odette understood why it was that Siegfried had asked her to stay away from him.

Until early evening, 11:00pm or so she would stick to him, watching him work passionately on the ancient tomes and works that encircled the room in the thousands, never tiring, never complaining and never stopping. Well, only stopping to give her a wink or a stroke on the head. Sometimes to inquire if she was hungry or thirsty or what she would like to do during the weekend.

He suggested that perhaps going to the park or camping out in Hellsing's moors would be enjoyable. Or maybe asking Sir Integra permission to go to the movies or maybe going out to a restaurant.

Odette's opaque eyes scanned her brother's face gushingly. What had gotten into him that he was so happy now?

The fire in him was gone.

Was Seras to blame for this?

The little German made a mental note of asking the Draculina about it when next she saw her. For all his apparent happiness, the little girl could smell a palpable anxiety from him which worried her. He would religiously watch the German news channel, biting his lower lip as the bulletins shot across the screen. When she asked him why he was so anxious he would always respond that he could "smell a rat". When asked to elaborate he would explain that he was worried because Ada even a whole week after her abduction, had not reported it. No matter how belligerently drunk she was, she would **not** overlook the absence of her daughter for an entire week. Nervously he would tug at his locks behind his ears or for the millionth time smooth his hair or wring his hands clean from water that was not there. With every passing day, his anxiety spiked higher and higher only abating when he was asked to deliver a report about some lead or other to Sir Integra. And making his worries known to her.

Odette's mind recalled all the months she spent alone with Ada and shuddered. It had indeed been terrifying. But, Big Brother did have a point: why would mother leave the security of their home at such lax attention if it was painfully predictable that Siegfried would come rescue her if he knew Ada was still alive?

Siegfried, for the thousandth time focused and ebbed out as his mind gripped the objective of what he was trying to do. His heart fluttered and hammered like Vulcan upon his anvil again and again.

_Sun, Warmth, Light, Scald, Burn, Death._

Focusing his hands together he reached out towards the wall as his biceps clenched as his mental strain intensified at a meticulously measured pace.

A spark of ghostly golden light fluxed in between the palms of his hands. Grabbing at the spark with his mind's eye he held it with the delicacy of grasping glass smoke. His mind shifted as he tried to think of something that would upset him, something that would give him drive. There were not many or anything meaningful he could think of off handedly. Siegfried's mind grasped at the image of Seras, the elation smoothed his concentration and the watery ghost light in his hands grew. Then, deliberately he thought about Seras. Feeble and vulnerable (if that was even possible) and some powerful threat looking to harm her, the thought spawned in his mind: Alucard raping Seras.

With a snarl and the warmth of anger within him, his hands shot outwards and a reverse funnel of golden light spilled from his palms into the wall with the force of a hurricane. He maintained the ghastly thought continuously as he attempted to keep the spell up for as long as he could against the blackened wall. Eventually his mental fatigue failed him and he abated the powerful stream of tangible ethereal light. The Occultist smiled in the library as he looked at the pock marked wall and at his own hands from under his hood. He had maintained the stream of light for forty seven seconds: not bad at all. The point of utilizing the whole spell as a continuous stream was not to maintain an attack, just to increase his stamina. The incantation would aid him well in the future he knew.

It worried him however that using offensive spells were beginning to become an increasingly laborious task. All of his memories had trickled down to him in the days after he saw Seras' and his picture. All of his memories, drives and clicks returned but he had not let anyone know. And he had not manifested any of his old tendencies.

In retrospect he saw how his head injury had limited him into a gentler, kinder person. It shamed him to think that he should go back to being his regular self even with how his Draculina had changed him. Yes, she had changed him hadn't she?

He could not cast a spell the way he used to because the resource had run out.

The power that fueled his talents was rage, anger, resentment. Things of which he had vast, almost endless inner supplies of.

And all of that had been run dry. He had been forced to resorting to imagining things in order to get himself worked up. He laughed wryly when he considered how he was now: a berserker who had been subjected to anger management and now simply couldn't get enraged. On the flip side however spells that required more patience and more focus came to him easier. Magic was peculiar like that, there was a science to it but much of it came from feeling. From his grandmother he had learned that Occultists, Wizards, Mages and all whatever you should choose to call them are unanimously passionate or austere beings. Destructive spells always require a feeling in order to pull the desired element or effect into being. Defensive and dispelling incantations require the opposite: focus and discipline in order to maintain the focus until one's intensity overpowers the other magical effect.

Siegfried's grandmother had the best of both worlds, a better Occultist he had never seen in his life. She was focused and patient enough to dispel an inferno cast at her and passionate enough to lance lightning in a hundred arcs at her enemies. Or so he had been told, grandmother's stories had been many and varied, fantastic and outlandish.

But if there is one thing that she always stressed he needed if he was ever to become a great magician was faith. For what was magic really if not a physical manifestation of a different sort of faith. It takes faith to believe and will into manifestation a fireball, it takes an act of faith in order to withstand a tempest of lightning or to stop a bullet with your mind. To believe that the bullet will stop, that the fire will not burn, that one's opponent shall be struck down by an invisible force. Oh yes there was a science to it all, but it was more an art than anything else. A deadly art.

The young Occultist smiled, then suppressed it.

Did Ada feel this elation when she exercised her power? Was that which gave her like so many others of their kind the overwhelming belief in their own superiority? That it was their right to use those around them in order to increase their own power.

Sure

But it had also given his grandmother that feeling of dread towards her own talents and with it, the monumental sense of responsibility with the same. And he would follow in her footsteps.

It was so murderously difficult though, power was intoxicating, it took patience and the higher road to not call oneself a god amongst frail mortals. To be in fact able to make yourself a god.

No matter how tempting it had been or would continue to be.

"Hey Siegfried" called Odette from the disproportionately large chair she sat on amidst the stacks of tomes in the library.

"Ja?"

"When said you smelled a rat, you said you didn't understand why Ada would leave everything unguarded" said little girl earnestly as she recalled her brother's old tendencies in comparing himself to his mother in negative ways.

"Ja" he called out neutrally

"If you were in her position, why would you leave things that way?"

Her older brother's eyes widened slowly as a thought dawned on him.

"Because I would want you to be taken with a rune that marked you as mine so I could find you"

Siegfried felt the pit of his stomach pulling at his guts and his fears. Ada had not lost Odette, she let him take her in the first place.

_Oh nein, bitte nein._

Integra trotted quickly down to Alucard's chambers with Seras at her heels. Alucard sat quietly in his chair without a word uttered from his mouth. He exhumed a sense of brooding that permeated through his clothing and his person.

Slipping into the Black Library and sealing it behind them Seras and Integra made their way to the pentagram in the middle of the library and were taken aback by the scene before them.

Odette stood in her underwear in the middle of it as her older brother scrutinized every centimeter of skin on her body.

"What's this about Officer? And why is your sister half naked?" demanded Integra in a deliberate and slithering voice. She'd been expecting the bomb with his mother to explode someday, but not this soon.

The German looked at them with worried eyes

"I think my mother let me take Odette that night and might have marked her with a rune in order to track her" he jittered out as he continued to paw Odette's chest as he looked desperately for some invisible design.

"Wait slow down what do you mean, she let you, take your sister?" began Seras as she wandered closer.

The Occultist snarled at nothing before continuing. His fingers crackled with wisps of violet smoke and the little static within them. His fingers licked out across Odette's frame, sniffing for magic.

"Ada made that public statement deliberately" he began as his fingers traced down Odette's legs who looked at the process with interest but nothing beyond the interest of a child looking at her pediatrician at work.

"She must have been counting that at some point I'd see it and try to rescue her. That's why there were no circles of protection or runes at home, she was letting me take her and be nervous enough not to think as to why it was so easy" he spoke with a voice like a hissing snake.

"Are we in danger?" asked Seras quietly as she remembered Siegfried's reaction to seeing his mother with his sister. The sheer terror and abject horror in his eyes.

Integra lit her ever present cigar and took a long drag.

"I think the appropriate question would be: how strong is Ada Junker?" asked Integra stoically but committing every word to memory.

The Officer turned his head slowly then snapped it back to Odette's chest which he continued to trace lingeringly as the smoke from his hands washed over here his digits touched. The air around him darkened as his mood dropped more by the second.

"I don't know"

"What do you mean you don't know!" screamed Integra at him, louder than she ever had before. In fact it was the first time she had ever screamed at an employee that was not Alucard in her life.

The Occultist cringed slightly at the anger carried through his master's voice as his hands ran over his sister's arms. A content little smile spread across her face as she recovered from the shout, clearly enjoying the caress.

"She is powerful, but I cannot tell you how much because I do not know. She never taught me anything" he reiterated carefully in an attempt to ease Integra.

"Then from who did you learn witchcraft? You said your mother taught you the old languages" demanded Integra as she bit clear through her cigar, then spat the butt on the floor of the occult library.

"My grandmother taught me how to use magic, my mother only taught me how to understand magic because having an illiterate slave is less efficient than having one that can understand and possibly assist. Magical processes are after all passed down through letter"

Before Integra could snap at Siegfried not to lecture her about magic as she herself knew much about it, a word danced into her mind and stayed there: "Slave", if there was one thing Siegfried was not it was sarcastic. Seldom would he say anything that was not deliberate or exact.

"Did your grandmother also teach your mother?"

"A little"

"Where is she?"

"Dead, Ada killed her"

Integra made a sound akin to a short barking laugh as she clutched at her glasses. "So, I have a barely literate and learned Occultist. You've been teaching yourself everything you know? You've been flirting with the greatest reservoir of occult knowledge in the British Empire and you have received no real apprenticeship from a master?" scoffed the Master of Hellsing as she swallowed the fact that the German might be more trouble than he was really worth in the grander scope of things. Witches or sorcerers pass on their knowledge to the younger generations, she knew Siegfried had stopped seeing his grandmother when he was but a child.

"You are causing me a lot of grief Mr. Weber" gritted Integra as she balled her fist. She had devoted enough time and energy into taming and mastering the German, she had made enough bloody concessions on his behalf however fond of him she was.

Siegfried stood quietly and stared at Integra, his stance was forward, his chin was held high. He posture was that of a challenge if a respectful one.

"Sir Hellsing, my grandmother taught my mother very little magic because very early on she knew how poisonous my mother was. My mother, Ada, is a powerful occultist who is self taught. Do not underestimate how frightfully powerful even an apprentice occultist can be" he declared, quietly and respectfully but standing his ground.

Integra's eyes became icy but the air around her seemed to lessen in severity.

"Anyone of the vampires or master vampire hunters who reside here could boast that they possess that kind of skill. The right to be called "frightfully powerful", but you sir are still a young man who up till very recently could barely run without enough painkillers to numb a horse. Would you boast the same? That you are strong enough to be called an asset and not simply a foot soldier with a trick up his sleeve?" queried Integra in a tone Siegfried didn't like.

Without missing a beat Siegfried answered.

"Ja"

The master of Hellsing smiled cruelly

"Then consider your next mission your trial by fire. I am going to put everything you've learned to the test. Succeed and I will never question the quality of your abilities again, fail and your sibling will never see you again" whispered Integra loud enough for him to hear but perhaps soft enough for Odette to miss.

The little German didn't and she wrapped her arms around Siegfried's neck as to impede him from going anywhere.

The Occultist ran his hands through Odette's hair lovingly before stroking the scruff of her neck. His expression became blank in an instant.

"Maybe the situation with your mother isn't as bad as you think? Are you sure that Ada has a way of tracking Odette to find where you are?" tried Seras, very uncomfortable with what Siegfried suggested with his mother and what Sir Integra meant by his "trial by fire".

The German seemed very tired in an instant as the violet smoke crackled from his hands and snaked onto Odette's skin behind her neck. With a small crack of energy Odette shrieked in what was very real pain. This stirred Seras and Integra forward who both wanted to know what harmed the child. Before either of them could speak Siegfried stroked Odette's shoulders as she nursed the back of her neck worriedly and sorely. He turned her around, her petite frame immaculate save for the occasional beauty mark.

Integra's eyes narrowed as did Seras' before both pairs widened in what the realization there was something disturbing on the little kraut's skin.

As if bleeding from the inside of the skin out was an ugly hooked symbol which permeated itself onto her skin like an incredibly vivid and incredibly sharp bruise.

"Regardless of what we think is going to happen. My mother will eventually come for me" began the Occultist as his finger wandered to the mark.

"This is her mark and I cannot remove it from Odette without killing her, the rune is too powerful. My mother is coming to Hellsing, and unless I miss my guess: she'll come very soon"

Integra grimaced, clearly annoyed

"And regardless of what you think or what you think you can do. Alucard will take care of her"

Siegfried's anxiety abated as did Seras'.

"Yes, Alucard will take care of it…"

Through the stone walls of the Black Library, through the telepathic link between Seras and her master, the No Life King's face split into a quaint little smile.

The smile of someone in a crowded room who was privy to a private joke that no one else got.

A cruel chuckle echoed through his chamber.

Mellow blues music sang through Siegfried's room as he laid on his bed quietly with Seras next to him. The tension hung like a dead miasma over them, neither spoke a word as the ticking of the Occultist's alarm clock counted off the seconds to another long hour.

"Siegfried"

"Ja, Schatzi?"

"What are you going to do if you see your mother?" asked Seras as she turned to him slowly, she readjusted herself by him. Silence stretched between them, the sound of Siegfried's shower and the sound of a small bucket being poured broke the silence.

"Siegfried! Wo ist die Zahnepasta?" shouted Odette brightly from the bathroom.

"Uber die Toilette" responded the older sibling clearly before looking back at Seras.

"I'm anxious, give me a hand" said Siegfried as he began to undo his shirt with pleading eyes to the Draculina. As he sat up he flexed every muscle in his very sore back from having been bent over reading books for hours at a time. The vampire sat up next to her lover and traced her gentle hands across his back before gently pressing where she knew he was sorest.

"You didn't answer my question"

The Occultist's eyes became hard before softening again as they settled over Odette's shoes set carefully next to his own, worn combat boots.

"Alucard will take care of Ada, I'm not going to do anything about her. You and Odette are my sole concern. Let's talk about something else" he stated automatically. His tone was absolute but sure, the answer was good enough for the police officer.

The Draculina continued to rub and work her lover's weary back before moving on to his neck. The German craned his neck back carefully as her long fingers worked around his throat. Her thumbs rolled across the edges of the back of his skull and he smiled placidly. If there was one thing that reminded the vampire of their age was her boyfriend's skin. Outwardly he could pass off for a slim, tall twenty something year old. But seeing his back she could see how pockmarked his skin was with old acne scars, it gave her a sense of how the two of them were just barely adults.

He really was a slim thing.

Smiling, the Draculina edged closer to the German and pressed her chest carefully against his back as her hands settled on his chest and her lips skirted his neck. The German wormed forward sheepishly. He looked back at her happily but concerned: "No, we can't right now" he whispered at her.

Seras' eyes closed lovingly before she groped at his shoulders

"Just a little" she giggled before planting a lingering kiss on his lips. Her head slid under his chin as she smelled him. She was also very fond that he could tell when she wanted to bite him and when she just wanted to mess around.

Though they couldn't do anything too fun, there was a little one running around.

The door to the German's bathroom opened revealing the little kraut wrapped in one of her older brother's towels. She smiled like she was almost on the verge of happy laughter when she saw the scene before her. Very carefully as to not disturb the couple she paced quietly to the side of Siegfried's bed and sat down on the edge. The Draculina's eyes became questioning for an instant as her boyfriend's sibling was with them now. He smiled at her very naturally and kissed her on the lips in front of his younger sister before breaking away. He positioned Odette on his lap and the brush from his nightstand shot into his hand as he snatched at it. Lovingly he began to brush the little kraut's short hair as was their routine.

Odette's eyes wandered to the very edges of her perception to look the Draculina over, a big smile broke on her face as the vampire winked at the little German. Gushingly she turned around to look at her older brother. Very anxiously she eyed the two of them, but the anxiety was that of excitement and hope as the child sat off her brother, and positioned herself between the two of them.

"Can I ask you two a question?"

The two adults smiled lightheartedly

"Of course, Odette"

"Just the one mein, kleines Kind?"

Seras grinned at Siegfried's comment before she looked back at the child.

Unable to contain herself any longer the little German took a deep breath before exploding.

"Are you and Siegfried getting married?"

The two adults looked at one another, the Draculina suppressed the very cold anxiety in her chest and she smiled carefully at the German man.

"Well your brother hasn't proposed yet" she tried as to lighten her internal mood.

Odette looked at Siegfried expectantly and with a wide happy smile. Siegfried blushed lightly before stroking his younger sister's head.

"I don't think Sir Hellsing would allow it darling. Besides I don't have a ring"

Before the little child could begin anew Siegfried spoke up first.

"Could you get me a glass of water please" he asked warmly, the little kraut furrowed her brow in thought as she hopped off the bed and hid in the bathroom as she clothed herself. As the child left the room now dressed Siegfried's mood was a little tentative.

He eyed Seras carefully and she him.

"Curious child isn't she?"

The vampire nodded quietly, her eyes wandered to his pillows. The image of him half bled to death with a cracked skull flashed through her mind. His vulnerability in mortality. She wanted to turn him, then he'd be safer. He wouldn't get hurt and he could live forever, that wouldn't be something so bad would it? The German looked at her, the wheels clicking in his own mind and for a long moment he considered her before he moved his eyes away. His two lavender dots narrowed in thought.

"What are you thinking about?" asked the vampire as her anxiety left her as he seemed to drop the almost alive topic of marriage proposals.

Siegfried looked at her and smiled lightly.

"I am thinking about where I could take you and Odette this weekend. Tomorrow is Saturday after all"

The vampire stuck her tongue out at him lightheartedly.

"I'm jealous you get to go on dates with Odette all the time. I'm stuck here"

"We've only camped outside twice and went exploring around the moors"

"During daylight hours"

The German smiled

"I'll talk to Integra so perhaps we can stay out longer. My birthday and Odette's is tomorrow and yours is coming up the day after. Don't think I've forgotten"

The Police girl looked at him brightly

"You were both born on the same day?"

Siegfried smiled proudly

"She was the best present I've ever received"

Again the Draculina felt a swelling of joy and pride mixed together. Her Occultist was a wonderful pseudo parent.

"I think it's sweet how you refer to Odette as your "Kind". It's so rare to find a brother like you, who's willing to take so much responsibility"

Siegfried grinned fondly, even if his countenance was a little serious.

"She is my child, in a very special way"

At Heathrow Airport, the automatic station doors opened quietly as they released the final group of passengers of the day. All of them very tired and very eager to get home and visit their families. One by one, each managed to find their loved one waiting for them at the airport or hail a taxi cab for a quick or not so quick ride home. Through the wind and the snow after the final traveler had left, a woman appeared through the sliding doors.

Her lavender eyes looked about the deserted platform and lack thereof of people. The hour was quite late and there would be no taxis left to ferry her to London proper.

The jagged scar across her statuesque neck mirrored her wicked smile.

Giving one last look about to make sure no one was about as well as security cameras the woman flexed her shoulders. With a shudder and a whisper, long since turned into a natural movement and action the woman's body changed like water into that of a mystical creature. The Beast looked to the dark skies, the color of which mirrored its own body and with a motion like a whip it tore its wings into the nightly heavens.

It's still lavender eyes looked to the moon as its mind reached out to feel. A point of gravity pulled at its consciousness as it felt the child. She was to the north, the creature could tell. Pulling memories from a runic link she saw Hellsing Manor in detail as it was burned into the memory of the impressionable child.

And with it she could see a vampire with big blue eyes and her son holding her lovingly and past that memory: The Black Library. Tome after beautiful tome of untapped magic just waiting for it to unlock its secrets.

The Beast smiled

Vengeance was at hand, and with it immortality.


	9. Chapter 9

Seras looked at the scene before her lovingly: the way Siegfried set Odette to bed and whispered to her in German. Likely all the fun things they would do tomorrow and how she should go to bed now as to hasten the night. Giving his sibling a peck on the lips he draped his voluminous covers over her and tucked her snugly into his bed.

"I'll be back soon, I have to finish a couple of things" he said as he winked at her before turning back at the Draculina who looked past him curiously.

"I want a hug from Seras too" said the little kraut who had un-tucked herself out of bed and was holding out her arms outstretched. The vampire bore a tooth bearing smile of the most happy kind and strode to the child and embraced her in turn. She felt a warmth in her heart as the little child's arms were locked around her neck. She was surprised however in the best way when the little German kissed her fully on the cheek with the biggest enthusiasm she could muster.

"Are you coming to our birthday tomorrow Seras?"

"But of course! I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Odette wriggled impatiently as she dove back into Siegfried's bed trying very hard to fall asleep.

Both adults left the room happy.

Walking side by side with one another, their expressions varied decisively. The vampire looked blushingly happy, the Occultist looked anxious.

"I really like your kid sister, she's so cute"

"She thinks very fondly of you"

The vampire smiled and walked into her room with the Occultist on her heels.

Later that night Siegfried twisted himself around in his high backed chair in the Black Library. His back was sore as were his eyes. But as tired as they were in the bright library his eyes intensely scanned word after ugly German word of the dark tome he was reading. Fear pushed him ever forward to learn more and more, and it was that same fear that gave him a near photographic memory of spell mechanics and incantations and runes. He needed to master this, at any cost. His heart hammered in his chest as he remembered the rune on the back of Odette's neck.

The Occultist's eyes shut in disgust, Ada had touched Odette. She had touched her.

When he had made contact with the rune he felt the ugly, ugly feelings that had been imprinted on his younger sibling. He had to watch what he'd say around Odette and what he'd show her around Hellsing. Surely Ada was watching and listening.

The wheels in his mind whirred and clicked madly as his mood dipped more by the second. His lips curled slightly as he remembered his mother's face, his eyes narrowed in anxiety and the tips of his fingers drummed on the table.

"Siegfried" called the Draculina who stood ever across from him in the Library.

Lavender eyes locked onto her and the drumming stopped in the instant.

"Let's go for a walk"

The Occultist looked deeply into Seras as he took a deep breath.

"Ok" he uttered as his hand opened towards where he had set his cane. It floated into his hand and he leaned on it heavily.

His mind's wheels began to click as he saw the small expression on Seras' face as she saw his cane. Which only tonight he had begun to sport again. In small retrospect he wondered if he was reverting to the ways he was before. The feelings in his heart where so very ugly at the moment. Could she tell?

They made their way out of the Library and up towards the manor itself. Siegfried held Seras' hand sparingly as he cracked his knuckles in anxiety.

The vampire sped up her pace as to not keep the Occultist pent up. Reaching a light trot both of them ran up the doors of Hellsing and upon opening them both began to run. Siegfried looked at Seras as she ran and he could sniff the anxiety and stress on her as well.

Both of them ran down the long path to the gates of the Hellsing Estate itself only stopping when they were just out of earshot of the two guards standing by the gothic portal. Neither of the men paid them too much mind, the Occultist running towards the gates in an escape attempt with the vampire at his heels months ago was a common sight.

The German breathed deeply as his mood improved from the run. His anxiety had abated if only a little. He looked over at Seras who breathed quietly , not at all bettered from the run itself or even winded.

"What's bothering you Seras?"

The Draculina sat down away from the path and onto the grass. Folding her lap and sitting quietly made her seem very ladylike. The German approached her and sat very close.

"Mein Schatz, what's bothering you?" he tried again, the kindness in his voice resurfacing.

Deep blue eyes looked back at him hesitantly before looking down at her usual skirt. Throwing his arm gently around the undead woman the German stroked her hair carefully. In a stray moment of emotional exhaustion the Occultist whispered.

"I love you and Odette with my life. I'd do anything for you two"

The vampire looked at Siegfried and her eyes watered in what he thought must have been happiness.

"Siegfried" began the vampire before swallowing very hard.

"What I have to say, it might seem really strange. But I really think you should give it some thought. I think it would be good for us"

The Draculina saw the curiosity in Siegfried's eyes as she began what she had long rehearsed in her mind. To turn him with the surely coming battle would be a good thing. It might even save his life, that extra endurance that undeath brought.

_-Darling, I want to turn you into a vampire._

The phrase sang through her mind as she took a deep breath to utter it. Her thought was cut short as she saw Siegfried's expression turn to steel. His eyes locked onto the darkness and the foliage behind her. His lavender eyes glowed a malicious violet, his cane whipped into a pseudo sword as he held it out as to ward away something unseen. Being yanked to her feet he stood between her and the ominous threat like a protective dog.

Ten seconds ticked by in silence, the Occultist's knuckles were white as he gripped his cane. The Draculina strained to see if there was something there and as if in response to her attempt two glowing violet dots appeared from nebulous, inky shadow. The smoke dispersed to reveal a gorgeous woman, classically and almost platonically beautiful. A jagged ugly scar showed under her neck as her perfect eyebrows furrowed to consider the young man before him. He reeked of fear, but also of courage. He took not once step back.

Seconds long ticked between them, and with them the woman produced an ornate dagger that curled and shot forward cruelly. Symbols and runes lines it as its edge glowed with violet energy, the woman held it out towards the Occultist mirroring the way he held his cane.

"Just leave us alone, please" whispered the Occultist

"No" smiled the woman, with a flick of her wrist a dark, opaque violet inferno erupted from her dagger in a torrent like the winds of a hurricane.

Siegfried, in the seconds it took for the motions to complete themselves he held his cane out like a bar with both hands and his thoughts centered on Seras.

_Protect, Defend, Faith_

Seras screamed as she grasped her German in an attempt to perhaps throw him out of the way of the hellfire. But she was surprised when a shimmering silver orb encased them both around the fire. The air in the bubble was cold and charged with spiritual adrenaline. She didn't feel afraid. The shield held like an impregnable dam as the fire washed over them. Seconds ticked by and Siegfried's kneels buckled as he snapped his teeth shut in focus.

The shield wavered like its epicenter.

Seeing what was happening the vampire jumped over the Officer and held his face.

"Siegfried! Look at me!" she cried and his eyes borrowed into hers. The shield had lost its luster but its shape held and hardened. More and more seconds ticked by and the fire withdrew. As the inferno fell so did the Occultist onto all fours as he caught his breath.

Within a second Seras pulled him to his feet and stood by him defensively.

The woman, the Witch was not winded at all. She seemed happily warmed up. Firing from their posts the two main entrance guards charged forward. The Witch smiled cruelly at them as their bullets were swatted away by some unseen force. Slashing her dagger across the air cutting a line made of pure light snaking ghostly lights arched and lanced towards the two men burning cleanly through their bodies. With a cackle like a sorceress of old the woman looked back at the Occultist and his pet whore and saw she was carrying him away towards the manor. Her body dematerialized into the same, inky, living smoke and rocketed past the couple and into Hellsing Manor, shattering its windows.

Ghastly in its shape and tumultuous speed, the smoke comet snaked into the halls of the mansion and by memories that where not its own it slipped into the dungeons under Hellsing.

The Occultist ran with Seras towards Integra's quarters which happened to be in the same wing as Siegfried's room, where Odette slept.

"Weber! Report to Captain Pryce immediately! There's been reports of gunfire by-" barked Siegfried's radio by a very pissed off Integra.

"Integra, its my mother Ada!"

"What?

"She's here. Call all available soldiers and operatives to your quarters, Seras and I are coming to you as we speak. Please, just do as I say. If we split up, we will all die"

"Roger" called the radio as Integra changed channels.

Both Hellsing operatives continued their fast charge into Hellsing, seeing the other operatives and soldiers heading their direction.

A frightened Odette ran after the soldiers who did not slow their pace to the child's.

"Odette!" shouted Siegfried and the little kraut turned to see her sibling. Without a word he scooped up his sister and passed her to Seras. The little German began to sob in protest but without a word her older sibling kissed her and ordered her to go with the vampire and to do as she said.

"I will come back, wait for me" he said to the little one.

"Where are you going?" shouted Seras over the cacophony of the now audible alarms and the barking orders of passing soldiers along with the droning of their boots.

"I need my equipment" he said as he shoved the Draculina in the direction they were going and ran back to another wing where his room was.

The Police Officer's very heart screamed at her to follow, but the little girl who was not clutching at her chest with wide and attentive eyes demanded her attention. She had to protect Siegfried's sister, she couldn't let him down.

She ran in the direction opposite to where her German had run to.

_Please hurry Siegfried, please._

The smoking comet slipped under the final door in Hellsing's dungeons and dissipated to reveal the woman with lavender eyes.

Before her sat a man in crimson clothing and by him a shattered radio.

"I felt you on the grounds before Integra began barking orders. Since my threat has presented itself before me and not my Master I feel no inclination to go to her side and leave you here all alone" began the man as he sat up.

The woman's eyes glowed violet again

"Are you ready to be set free vampire?" began the woman

Alucard smiled maliciously

"I am going to imprint a rune on you. For a night, you will be unable to hear, see, move or feel. When the sun rises again your master will be dead and you will be free. But I need you to be still, understand?" whispered the woman as her twirled hand began to glow with energy.

"Give me your best shot witch"

The woman approached the vampire and gave him a light tap on the head as to sit him back down onto his dark, high backed gothic chair.

"Oh, and give Siegfried my kindest regards wont you Ms. Junker"

The Witch smiled lightly, then pushed her hand onto the No Life King's forehead. The glowing of her hand and her eyes intensified as all the power of the spell was focused, then released onto its target.

Simultaneously, the woman's other hand began to focus inky darkness which began to creep into the very fabric of the stone of the manor around them.

Siegfried kicked the door to his room open and bounded over his bed. He swirled his black hooded cloak over his shoulder and gripped the two gauntlets on his German armor suit. Following suit he put on his greaves and cuirass and gripped the German blade. Focusing himself he bounded out of the room and tore through Hellsing, along with the last few soldiers that had been stationed the farthest from Sir Integra's quarters. The German gave only a last look behind him and he noticed how the lights, both electric and candlelight began to be snuffed out. His legs pumped harder until he bent the corner and saw the wide open doors of Hellsing's quarters. Soldiers and Captain Pryce lined the door expertly with their guns aiming right out.

"Move your ass Kraut!" shouted Pryce, as the darkness began to swallow the world behind him.

The German's heart beat quicker and quicker as the darkness flowed behind him, ever gaining ground. Before he bent the last quarter the watery, inky darkness washed over the passage from another hall cutting him off. Pryce and he locked eyes for an instant before the darkness engulfed him.

Adrenaline fueled his desperation and the Occultist shot his hand forward. Watery, golden light exploded from his hand like the sun ripping through the darkness . With a final bound he fell through the thin black and fell into Integra's room with a roll. With a backwards whip of his arms the door slammed shut.

Pryce and the Master of Hellsing backpedaled as the German knight now gripped his blade downward and stabbed it ineffectually into the marble. In his hood, with wide and unblinking eyes began to utter a string of words in dead languages in an expert rapidity. The Occultist's armor began to glow at the edges with teeny tiny runes he had engraved on them over time. Tiny little enchantments also lined his sword. A golden, ethereal dust that flowed like cigarette smoke bled itself out of his armor and sword.

Integra looked on with a very real sense of dread in her gut and heart as the darkness crept into the room inch by inch, struggling against the wizard in the middle of the room. She felt like she should try to communicate with Siegfried as his verbal string of tongues faltered little by little. But something forbade her to speak lest she draw from his concentration.

The Occultist screamed to the top of his lungs as the enchantment reached a crescendo and his right gauntlet shone with golden light which changed its color from filthy silver to a perfect gold. The darkness crept away as the knight held out his arm to the door. Silence settled into the room as the Officer looked back under his hood at those standing with him. Following his instincts as to how to move, breathe and focus the Occultist purged his mind of feeling as much as he could as he tried to switch his very being into the suit of a being trained for battle. His eyes wandered to each face in the room.

Pryce and Integra who looked on very vaguely with the expression of children who had just witnessed something amazing and were unsure if it was ok to breathe again. Seras and Odette with expressions akin to awe and pride. Walter stood by the Master of Hellsing quietly, with a gaze as though he was not sure what to make of the Occultist now. And no less than twelve soldiers who had managed to make it in time looked at him with relief, because he was on their side.

Siegfried's countenance was like icy iron as he regarded each with his glowing lavender eyes.

The two violet orbs settled on Integra before his lips moved.

"Where is Alucard?" he asked, his German accent very pronounced .

As she regained feeling of her body Integra spoke.

"Radio communication was cut, I don't know where he is"

The Occultist considered for a moment before speaking

"We cannot afford to wait, we have to find Alucard. If he is not engaged against Ada yet then he should soon be and we cannot bear to be caught by Ada without him. We will let him deal with her, after meeting up with him we must reach the Black Library. The lot of you will be safe there while he finishes her"

"So what you are suggesting Mr. Weber is that we should wait this out?"

The Occultist's gaze left no room for counter

"To my knowledge this is the very first time that you have been assaulted by a magical foe. You will follow my instructions"

"Which are?" asked Pryce, with a tone no longer like a commander but that of an equal. Or perhaps even of a soldier to her commander.

"I can only exert this much influence around myself" he began as he gestured to the room around them.

"If you step out of it you are in her realm and she will drive you mad, craze you with illusion or destroy you with her…..creatures. The Black Library is impregnable, even for her. Those of you that will not be of use must be placed in the Library" he added as he gestured to Odette, Integra and the soldiers and Pryce who looked somewhere between relieved and insulted.

"We will remain the Library as Alucard engages Ada"

His eyes faltered with a tinge of doubt as he began again

"Or assist him if necessary" his eyes wandered to Walter and Seras, both of which were steely.

Pryce looked at Integra

"Sounds like a plan"

"But why don't we leave just leave Hellsing and come back with reinforcements?" asked one of the soldiers, her rifle sight glued to the door even though nothing came through the portal or suggested a presence behind it.

"Because it will be a disaster to keep it quiet, furthermore it will cause unnecessary deaths. Am I right Mr. Weber?" asked Integra as she gripped her saber.

The Occultist gave her a curt nod

"However, we have to finish this before sunrise. It is the established protocol to assault Hellsing at dawn in case of an attack. So this gives us nearly four hours to dispose of Ms. Junker before the English Special Forces come to the Manor" added Pryce.

The German looked back at the door

"How many personnel are not with us right now?"

"Ninety six, in how much danger are they?" asked Walter

The German's eyes closed painfully

"You shall see" he answered as he gripped his sword and made for the door of Hellsing's room.

Ada stood before the chamber with the runes and in front of her no more than twenty five paces stood the door to the Black Library. She could feel the dense and almost unearthly powerful pull of the enchantments protecting the door. As powerful as she was she dared not near it. The runes could feel her presence, invisible tendrils clawed at her senses eager to end her.

The woman paced back to the vampire who sat at his throne, quite still and quite unfeeling and sat on his armrest.

Leafing through Odette's memories she saw the face of the woman who ruled this place.

If anyone would know how to open the portal, it was her.

Closing her eyes she could feel the hundred lives in this place, all struggling against her. Their puny minds and spirits thrashing like small guppies against an enormous and all encompassing net, she focused herself and unleashed her beasts.

She knew that many of them would die, she was well aware with what things the Hellsing Manor's soldiers were armed with. But she would prevail in the end. With illusions, all those who were not killed would be driven over the edge of madness.

The woman smiled cruelly

Sitting herself behind Alucard's throne and wrapping herself in shadow she spread her mind and with it all the wrath and magic in it upon the lives trapped in Hellsing.

Siegfried led the party down the main hall of the second floor. His eyes wandered back to check on the group. Soldiers covered what they could discern through the glow of his aura and the smoke of the darkness. Integra, flanked by Walter and Pryce paced quietly behind him. In the middle was Seras who had strategically positioned herself and Odette in the very middle of the group. She held the little German girl to her chest carefully guarding her.

The Occultist could not be more proud of her, or suppress the swell of love he felt bloom from his heart.

As the feeling extended so did his aura, even a small smile crept on his face. They could do this. The **would** survive. Failure was unacceptable.

The German sped up as he reached the main hall, swiftly leading the way he hesitated before he finished. He could see, amidst the receding darkness a figure curled up in the fetal position. Mad gibbering dribbled out of the soldier's mouth as he began to whimper. Pryce stepped by Siegfried to help the soldier before she was stopped by the Officer's sword. He shook his head slowly as he led the way again.

"Answer me" he spoke as his sword was held out aggressively

Maddened eyes pierced out of the position as the soldier produced a gun from his waist. The sphere of influence of the Occultist wrapped around the man and yet his eyes continued to shake.

"Put the gun down Waters, we are here to help you" began Pryce as the soldier began to smile hysterically and aim it dead at her.

The senior officer raised her own gun at the man

"Eddy, I mean it put it down now" repeated Pryce now, progressively more agitated as the gun began to rise more and more.

"Eddy!" she screamed at the man as she saw the hammer slowly pull back.

With a swirl the German arced his sword upwards severing fingers and batting the gun away from the crazed man. With a rapidness that he had previously not exhibited the man curled up and fumbled at his belt before the German chopped his blade into the man's brain.

With a wet slice he drew the blade out. The blood looked quite black despite the brightness of the aura.

Everyone present was looking at him questioningly, the uncomfortable silence stretched between them like an endless chasm.

The Occultist with the tip of his sword pulled the man's arms off and uncurled them.

Clutched in each hand were grenades, a finger and a thumb jutted from each pin.

"Ada will kill many, but those that manage to hold onto their minds we can save if the witch dies"

Siegfried continued to lead the way in silence, trying very hard to ignore what effect would all this have on Odette as the procession behind him struggled to assimilate what he had just done. There was zero hesitance on his part, zero doubt. Was he right in doing so? He hated Eddy, the man had treated him like dirt before and after his brain injury. He'd always called him "Freak". Despite that, would it have been possible to save him?

It didn't matter anymore.

The Occultist was just about to continue down the hall where the dungeon door stood when he felt a chill in his spine. The cold air around his lungs inside his chest cavity, the feeling of prey being stalked, his eyes were glued to the front but every one of his now adrenaline enhanced senses, were concentrated in the darkness around him.

There was something before him. And he could sense it was big, he could also sense it was salivating at his sight, it was supremely enjoying the feeling of being in front its prey soon to be meal without the same being able to see it.

Whatever was before him, it knew what it was doing, it was an able and competent hunter. It had to be in order to have snuck up on him this close without him sensing it.

The creature as if sensing that the boy knew it was right behind him released its breath.

A low growl whispered out of its maw. Saliva dribbled out of its now gaping mouth ready to bite down though the Occultist could not see this. But the sound it made was heard by the group. All of them took a step back, save the Occultist and the blonde women and the butler.

Gripping his sword the Occultist focused on Odette and Seras. With implacable effort he extended his radius of influence suddenly to reveal the beast.

The creature roared a terrifying and disturbing roar. Like a hoarse wolf howling, and three people moaning in a symphony of agony at the same time.

It was low and high at the same time, it was off keyed, like someone unused to singing. It caused a primeval fear in anyone who heard it, something of time immemorial. A fear embedded in all human beings in the deepest recesses of the human mind, from when human beings were still prey.

The creature's ruddy countenance and gaping maw lined with stiletto-like fangs paled in comparison with the beast's body which rippled with muscle. Feral eyes looked at the Occultist, the man held its gaze even as it growled menacingly.

Jerking forward in a mock charge the beast felt an elation of predatory instinct as the German jerked backwards in fear despite his herculean effort to stand his ground.

The man's fate was sealed so far as the monster was concerned. It was prey.

Rippling muscle shot forward as it bounded to the Occultist. Eyes and maw set on its linear trajectory to his throat.


End file.
